Alien Raiders

Introduction

This latest release from the Raw Feed production label takes place in the quiet town of Buck Lake, Arizona. As the manager of the Hastings Market is busy skimming off the top and begins closing up, a group of armed intruders storm in and lock the door. Seemingly there to take hostages and rob the place, their odd behaviour suggests otherwise. One of the group, known as Spooky (Philip Newby), grabs the customers and staff members' faces and stares into their eyes, declaring them safe or otherwise, if he gives them a negative report they are summarily executed. An off duty cop shoots Spooky so those declared clear are released to the police outside whilst the rest are herded into the back. Now another member of the group, Sterling (Courtney Ford), has to use another and bloodier test as no-one else has Spooky's gift.

What begins as a heist film turns into a claustrophobic sci-fi/horror in the vein of The Thing and Alien as this group of odd misfits believe extraterrestrials came to Earth in a meteor and this store is the locale for the 'king' who must be destroyed.

The group's leader, Ritter (Carlos Bernard), is contacted by hostage negotiator Seth (Mathew St. Patrick) whose daughter is one of the employees. Not knowing who is infected and how much time they have, the gang must find the 'King' before he kills them and the alien invasion spreads.

Video

The gang kill the lights early on and the film takes place entirely at night so fortunately the DVD has a fairly clear transfer that does its best with the numerous low-lit scenes. The film cuts between the movie and video footage that the group are taking as they go so some footage is a little hard to make out, with plenty of movement and noise but this adds to the overall effect.

There are some decent prosthetics and special make-up effects used, especially to create the aliens.

Audio

A very effective Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack which contains some decent jumps and a fine score by Kays Al-Atrakchi, which helps to build and maintain the tension. The dialogue is clear, the surrounds are used well and the range of audio and subtitle options put a lot of larger releases to shame.

Extra Features

There is nothing particularly lengthy or comprehensive here, the longest of the features is the making of which only runs for 8 ½ minutes. This gives some background to the project and consists mostly of interview footage but is complemented by the three minute look at the effects. The other bonus material includes handheld camera footage of Sterling and Spooky, giving more information about their characters and postings from Whitney's MySpace blog. The package is rounded off with trailers for all the Raw Feed releases.

Conclusion

Obviously a low-ish budget film which is straight-to-DVD, Alien Raiders manages to create a level of suspense and horror that is lacking from much bigger releases. There are no big names amongst the cast, unless you include 24's Carlos Bernard and Mathew St. Patrick from Six Feet Under and the crew consists mostly of people who've made TV films and other small projects. The only name that really sticks out is Daniel Myrick, one of the writer/directors of The Blair Witch Project, and he's been involved in other Raw Feed projects, directing Believers. The actors all acquit themselves well, belying their lack of name recognition, bringing real plausibility to their roles.

Obviously influenced by The Thing - they admit as much in the making of - this keeps the idea of a small group of people with an alien amongst them who could be anyone and does is very well. This obviously doesn't reach the heights of John Carpenter's genre classic but is effective and very watchable.

The relatively low RRP of £9.99 (it's available for less) puts it as an attractive blind buy for a similar price to a cinema ticket to see the theatrical release of much worse films - well worth a look.