www.jakewest.comDir: Jake West
Cast: Chris Adamson, Emily Booth, Jodie Shaw, Norman Lovett
They like anal probes
tv crew investigate
as bad as his hair
“Look at his hair, it’s bound to be crap,” exclaimed Steve as he spotted director Jake West up in the bar area. I tried reasoning with him, I told him that Jake seemed a nice fella, that Evil Aliens had been getting a good buzz on the festival circuit, and hey, maybe Razorblade Smile wasn’t quite as bad as we all remembered. But never one to let facts get in the way of opinion, Steve was standing firm. The pre-credits sequence with the first anal probe of the evening provided some early laughs from the audience, but then the credits began and the first seeds of doubt started to enter my mind. Jake West’s Evil Aliens you say? I’m sorry, but isn’t it common practice to make at least half a dozen decent quality films before you’re afforded the prestige of sticking your own name above the film’s title? Or is Mr West being ironic here? Actually, the film isn’t that bad. It's basically a reality TV crew headed by Emily Booth, with a sci-fi nerd (Adamson) in tow, investigating a case of UFO abduction in deepest Wales. Once you got used to the idea that this is an amateur piece of film making and was not taking itself too seriously then there's enough going on for a late night audience to enjoy, whether it be gratuitous cleavage shots, the subtitles for the Welsh dialogue, the dodgy alien outfits (think Predator meets Battlefield Earth), or the aforementioned anal probes. Oh yeah, and not forgetting the combine harvester carnage soundtracked by The Wurzels! Sure, there are too many ideas lifted direct from other classics (Evil Dead 2, Phantasm), and the CGI shots are poor, but what ultimately lets Evil Aliens down is its shabby conclusion; it’s as if the film makers were making it up as they went along and just decided that they ought to kill off as many characters as possible in increasingly silly and outlandish ways. Maybe Steve had it right all along, it was all in the hair.
soulmining rating: **
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