Category Archives: Alien Abduction

31 Days of Horror: The Thing (R; 1982; 109 min.)

Posted on October 31, 2018 | Leave a comment

Directed by John Carpenter, The Thing is everything you could want in a classic horror movie: isolated location, an unknown entity, gore galore (amazing special effects before their time!), and a nice escalation leading to a very suspenseful ending. Of course it also trots out some classic horror movie tropes, but with Kurt Russell in the lead, you know it will all be okay.

Set during the winter in Antarctica at a U.S. research station, the small group of men working there are trying to figure out why a Norwegian helicopter crashed and burned near their base. After looking further and discovering at the nearby Norwegian base that everyone is missing or dead, they also discover an alien being they believe to be the culprit. So of course, in classic horror-movie hubris, they take it back to their base. And surprise…it doesn’t like them either! As the alien secretly invades their bodies one by one, they turn on one another, finally devising a plan to escape The Thing before it destroys them all!

Top Scare: Too many to pick (all involve alien)
Heartbeats: 4 out of 5
Gore Factor: 5 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 4 out of 5
Recommended for: 17 and up, due to extreme gore

31 Days of Horror: Dark Skies (PG-13; 2013; 97 min.)

Posted on October 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

Keri Russell sans twisty hair? Okay, maybe I can manage. And I’m kinda sorta glad I did.

Dark Skies is a supernatural horror movie with a decent premise: unusual, freaky things are happening in the Barrett household, especially to the youngest member Sam, and those beings responsible are not stopping until they get what they really want. As horror movie parents go, Lacey and Daniel are good ones to have because they don’t just dismiss these odd occurrences and get on with their days as so often happens in these movies (that dismissal is left up to a local, cocky police officer they keep calling in to help them figure it all out). Lacey especially works hard to figure out how, say, toasters and plates and glasses came to be stacked-floating in her kitchen one morning and her kids have strange markings on their bodies. Despite not being able to convince me she actually bore two kids – her body is way too underdeveloped for that – she is very convincing in her passionate fear for their safety. And with decent scares stacking up as well as mugs and appliances, this movie leads us on a tense, if odd, path towards a twist ending a la M. Night Shayamalan’s Signs.

Top Scare: Seeing “others” each time
Heartbeats: 3 1/2 out of 5
Gore Factor: 1 1/2 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 1/2 out of 5
Recommended for: 15 and up

Horror Movie: The Fourth Kind (PG-13; 2009; 98 min.)

Posted on October 14, 2010 | Leave a comment

Okay, so I’m a sucker for “reality-based” alien-abduction movies if the aliens are not here for peaceful purposes (E.T. was great, but not for a good scare). That’s why I chose this movie starring Milla Jovovich as Dr. Abigail Tyler, a psychologist in Nome, Alaska, a town where hundreds of people have (supposedly) mysteriously disappeared since the 1960’s. Formatted as a re-creation of events entertwined with actual interview footage of Dr. Tyler herself and Dr. Tyler with several of her patients, The Fourth Kind tries to appear to blend fact with the unknown. And it kind of succeeds.

The supposedly “real” Dr. Tyler is a pale, sickly looking woman telling us of the events which led up to her daughter’s abduction by aliens (the Fourth Kind is actually the name of this type of interaction with aliens…an abduction). It all began some time after her husband’s death, when several of her patients talked of seeing an owl at night. That’s, unfortunately, all they can remember. Upon hypnosis (Milla Jovovich’s soft, fluid voice here almost had me under too!), the patients reveal that the owl, which is not at that point an owl, comes into the room and then “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…” That’s all we discover, as they are too terrified to go on with their story.

Soon, these patients are killing off family members and Dr. Tyler falls under suspicion for her “hypnotic spells.” We discover this entity which the patients are experiencing speaks to them in an ancient Sumarian language, and seems to take over their bodies as well. A couple of these scenes are especially cool to watch.

Finally, one night the aliens descend upon Dr. Tyler’s house, abducting her young daughter. Trying to find her, Dr. Tyler herself is hypnotized by a colleague, and it does not go well. This is where I must end my review to prevent spoiling the ending (of the movie) for you. Suffice it to say, this is a good suspense/thriller type of movie with a scare or two thrown in as well.

Top Scare: One of the hypnosis scenes
Heartbeats: 3 out of 5
Gore Factor: 1/2 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 3 1/4 out of 5
Recommended for: 12 and up

Next up: Salem’s Lot