DVD Alien Armageddon

As a mostly sane and rational adult I had never seriously considered blinding myself. That was before I saw 'Alien Armageddon'. As an alternative to sleeping pills, or if you are the type of masochist who just won't settle for water-boarding, this movie is for you. I recently stubbed my toe pretty bad and was once again reminded of the general feelings I had regarding this movie. I should have turned it off before I started nodding off (roughly two to three minutes into the film) but the experience was oddly reminiscent of the scene in 'A Clockwork Orange' where the title character is strapped to a chair, his eyelids propped open, forced to watch a bizarre set of unrelated and disturbing images. It soon struck me however, that the images in front of me were neither disturbing nor evocative of any emotion. If there is a hell, I'm certain this film is playing ad nauseam. I really haven't seen a movie this bad since 'Jingle All the Way' with Arnold Schwartznegger. My sister made me go see that film because she had a childhood crush on Robert Conrad (who played a cop in the movie), my love for her was the only thing that kept me from walking out. I saw 'Alien Armageddon' of my own free will, and of this I am truly ashamed. I offer this review as a humble penitence in hopes no other poor soul should make the same mistake I have.

"Battlespace" writer & director Neil Johnson's derivative, low-budget, science fiction actioneer "Alien Armageddon" chronicles a breed of Martian invaders, 'the Nephilim,' who subjugate planet Earth for a little more than three months. These hostile intruders establish their headquarters in Los Angeles. They rely on our own scientists to modify our DNA so that we serve as fodder for these ravenous monsters who had to abandon their famine-stricken world. Actually, the Nephilim have been quietly infiltrating Earth for many decades, acquiring knowledge about our character and culture. The cardboard, computer generated special effects in the first ten minutes look like something out of a black & white graphic novel. The spacecraft and alien army outfits resemble a schlocky synthesis of a SyFy made-for-cable feature and a knock-off Asylum made-for-video epic. An armada of spacecraft with submarine-shaped hulls sans conning towers which are equipped with tridents mounted on their bows hover over like vultures every major city. The alien soldiers look like distant cousins of the "Star War" robot C3PO. Decked out football regalia bristling with hoses, they bear deadly automatic weapons. Predictably, the earthlings capitulate in the first half-hour as these nefarious extraterrestrials conquer and incarcerate humanity. Some of the humans, desperate to survive long enough to escape, turn into quislings, and the jailed humans are fed contaminated food which makes them edible to the aliens.

Our protagonist is a feisty Jewish red-head, Jodie Elliot (British actress Katharine McEwan of "Sinners"), who operates a print shop in contemporary Los Angeles. She is contending with a disgruntled customer who wants a discount when the alien ships arrive over the city. After the aliens dominate the planet, Jodie joins the resistance, but she is captured and ends up with two guys in cramped prison quarters with an electronic force field substituting for iron bars. The inmates dine from black plastic buckets on unsavory slop, while they relieve themselves into a small foot locker. The food is so disgusting that they wind up puking it up not long after digesting it. Nevertheless, this is all that they are allowed to devour. Jodie shares a cell with a disillusioned African-American, Markus (Benjamin J. Cain Jr.) and a Caucasian military bomber pilot, Sheen (William David Tulin), who blasted Chicago. Jodie wants desperately to escape and rejoin her daughter who lives in the nearby small town of Little Rock, California. She watches in horror as her cell mates are hauled off to become brunch. At one point, Jodie escapes briefly and witnesses a harrowing scene where a pregnant woman excretes chunks of flesh.

The other character of some prominence is a murderous miscreant named 'Cowboy' (Don Scribner) who has been locked up at Folsom State Prison from the get-go for killing his son during an awful bus crash. Cowboy wears his hair long, talks through a grizzled beard, and dresses in a duster with a Stetson riding low on his eyebrows. He manages to escape but is captured by the aliens not long afterward and thrown in the same cell with Jodie. Meantime, two scientists Franci (Rochelle Vallese) and Dr. Brenna (Julia Parker) are collaborating with the Nephilim to make humanity palatable for the aliens. Once the Nephilim have used Franci, they put her into the same cell with our heroes. The Nephilim take Markus and feed him to a flesh eating zombie like creature. Jodie, Franci, and Cowboy escape when Jodie fakes a bout of illness. The girls head for Little Rock, but Jodie doesn't find her daughter. Cowboy later rejoins them.

Meantime, Franci injects Jodie with some strange serum so that she becomes a bio-medical weapon against the Nephilim. Franci rhapsodizes about the pleasures of masquerading as a human and all the feelings that life evokes for her. Predictably, she dies. Eventually, humanity triumphs over the Martian invaders. Before this occurs, we get to see revolting shots of giant, beady, orange slugs with pincers gnawing on the flesh and bones of decaying humans. Franci dispatches Jodie on her sacrificial mission to save mankind with a lingering lesbian lip-lock. Jodie neither pukes nor repels Franci. The characters spout loads of profanity.

Little about the humdrum "Alien Armageddon" is compelling, exciting, or humorous. A few firefight scenes between Nephilim troops and earthlings enliven the predominantly exposition-laden narrative, but there are no revelations in this derivative, standard-issue invasion flick. The Nephilim chieftain looks menacing with is zombie-like complexion, but Johnson doesn't give him adequate screen time to create more than a fleeting impression. "Alien Armageddon" qualifies an abominable opus with one-dimensional characters, shoddy storytelling, second-rate special effects, forgettable dialogue, and nondescript acting. Pretentiously enough, Johnson inserts a preamble and a postscript where he quotes from the Book of Enoch. Clocking in at 95 interminable minutes, "Alien Armageddon" makes "Battlefield Earth" look like "Star Wars."