Alien Factor 2: The Alien Rampage (2001)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
Disappointing sequel has the FBI and a small town sheriff investigating some strange activities and before long they realize they're dealing with a deadly alien.
Director Don Dohler made THE ALIEN FACTOR in 1978 and somewhat remade it in 1982 as NIGHTBEAST. I found both of those movies to be a lot of fun because the director manages to have a nice throwback to the 1950's drive-in era but he mixed in sex, gore and nudity. Twenty-three years after that original film he returned with this sequel but sadly the charm has pretty much warn off and you're left with a rather boring movie.
I must say that on a technical level this here is probably the best film I've seen from the director. The film was obviously shot with a very low-budget but I thought the look was quite professional and there's no question that it was technically well-made for what it was. The problem was the fact that there just wasn't anything fun going on. The two films I previously mentioned at least gave us decent monsters as well as some very good gore scenes but that's not the case here. The monster looks extremely bad and I'd argue that the death scenes were boring and not very creative.
The film has the bad performances that you'd expect but these here really weren't a major issue. The budget allowed for some cheap special effects but they certainly weren't interesting enough to draw you into the picture and it's really too bad that they got away from what made the original work so well.
* 1/2 (out of 4)
Disappointing sequel has the FBI and a small town sheriff investigating some strange activities and before long they realize they're dealing with a deadly alien.
Director Don Dohler made THE ALIEN FACTOR in 1978 and somewhat remade it in 1982 as NIGHTBEAST. I found both of those movies to be a lot of fun because the director manages to have a nice throwback to the 1950's drive-in era but he mixed in sex, gore and nudity. Twenty-three years after that original film he returned with this sequel but sadly the charm has pretty much warn off and you're left with a rather boring movie.
I must say that on a technical level this here is probably the best film I've seen from the director. The film was obviously shot with a very low-budget but I thought the look was quite professional and there's no question that it was technically well-made for what it was. The problem was the fact that there just wasn't anything fun going on. The two films I previously mentioned at least gave us decent monsters as well as some very good gore scenes but that's not the case here. The monster looks extremely bad and I'd argue that the death scenes were boring and not very creative.
The film has the bad performances that you'd expect but these here really weren't a major issue. The budget allowed for some cheap special effects but they certainly weren't interesting enough to draw you into the picture and it's really too bad that they got away from what made the original work so well.