The Area 51 Incident (2022) by Rhys Frake-Waterfield


Director: Rhys Frake-Waterfield
Year: 2022
Country: United Kingdom
Alternate Titles: Alien Abduction; Area 51 Outbreak
Genre: Creature Feature

Plot:
After arriving on a confidential military base, a group of scientists looking over the employment of a wormhole being operated at the facility learns that the usage opened a doorway to a world filled with alien creatures that are now overrunning the countryside and must find a way to stop them.

Review:

This one wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. Among its more impressive aspects is the fun pace that has a lot to like with the amount of action presented here. As the failed experiment is within the first few minutes of the action and lets the creatures run wild even before the credits sequence hits, there’s some fun to be had with the creatures overrunning the facility and concurrent countryside. While all done in long-shot that keeps everything to glimpses of the chaos, it’s still enjoyable enough much like the second half where the creatures are given more of an extra bit of info about how they spread with the parasitic creatures breaking out of the infected bodies and the means of possession. This all goes along nicely with the final half featuring them invading the compound for a strong series of stalking scenes making use of the darkness in the facility while also featuring their unique designs getting centerstage for a lot to like here.

There are some issues to be had with this one. The main drawback is the film’s rather confusing layout and origin status for what’s going on as the whole thing taking place in the US is completely destroyed by the Britishness of the production and the locations’ aesthetics. There’s no way this is supposed to be the American desert where the actual location supposedly takes place and everything about it screams it’s a foreign production so the illusion is destroyed rather easily by these factors. Likewise, there’s way too much stupidity here to make for a rather hard time to care about them when they go into dangerous situations with no sense of personal safety or tactical wherewithal to understand the situation that is hard to get behind. Lastly, there’s the absolutely horrendous CGI that never once looks believable for the creatures all look like video-game cutscenes and a near-total lack of gore with everything done off-screen that also manages to bring this down.


Overview: **.5/5
A generally watchable-at-best sci-fi/genre effort, the positives here are quite fun but this one still manages to be undone by a lot of the negatives which are pretty prominent. Give this a look if this kind of indie project appeals to you or are a fan of the creative crew while most others should heed caution with this one.

Comments