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Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Science Fiction > Action > Alien Fear Collection (Mill Creek Entertainment DVD Set)

Alien Fear Collection (Mill Creek Entertainment DVD Set)

 

Average Picture: D     Average Sound: D     Extras: D     Features:

 

The Absence of Light – D

Willows Way – D

6 Angels – D

Exterminator City – C-
 
 

The latest collection of awful low-budget crap passing for cinema released by Mill Creek is called the Alien Fear Collection.  Of the four features only Willows Way has anything to do with aliens.  Aliens that are also time-traveling angels with magic wands.  I think.

 

All four films have many, many problems.  Chief among them are crappy actors delivering even worse dialogue, which is maddeningly common among low budget independent genre films.  But The Absence of Light and Willows Way dig deep to create new and more creative problems for themselves.  Willows Way tries desperately to weave a complex and engaging plot that skips through various timelines.  Instead they end up with a repetitive jumbled mess and the aforementioned magic time-traveling alien angels wearing tiaras.  That is honestly the most complete plot summary I can give you.

 

On the other hand, whoever wrote The Absence of Light doesn’t seem to have any idea what a plot is.  The film seems to revolve around two warring “dirty deeds” agencies as they fight over politics, software that can track all personal data on anyone in the country, and genetically engineered monster soldiers.  But aside from ongoing excuses to shoot each other and a big old explosion at the end, none of this has any affect on the plot of the movie because there is none.  The only thing that The Absence of Light has going for it are celebrity cameos from Tom Savini and Tony Todd.  Otherwise this film is viscerally painful to watch.

 

6 Angels is actually a bit better.  It at least has a functioning plot and characters that change as the story progresses.  The acting and dialogue are still bad, and there are scenes where the main character is in her pajamas for no apparent reason, but the filmmakers took some care in how the film was executed and displayed at least a modicum of talent despite their low budget.  The story picks up as Taileen awakes from a coma after 12 years.  She has been called to become the newest Angel of the Circle.  For hundreds of years 3 angels have struggled against 3 demons.  When one falls, another is called, and so their battle continues.  But the demons have discovered a way to break the cycle and disrupt the balance of power.

 

And then there’s Exterminator City.  Set in a gritty futuristic metropolis that is apparently inhabited entirely by robots and naked porn stars, Exterminator City follows a robot serial killer and the robot detective who’s on his case.  The robots are puppets, the victims are all busty and naked (for no apparent reason) and Exterminator City is actually pretty awesome.  And by awesome I mean terrible.  This is camp at its most extreme.  Exterminator City is the bastard child of the Terminator series, Se7en, soft-core porn, and Pee Wee’s Playhouse.  There are actually really only two things holding this film back.  First of all, the actual murders are extremely repetitive.  The killer spies on the girl long enough for us to ogle her inexplicably exposed breasts, she sees him, screams, and then he kills her with some increasingly bizarre weapon.  And this repeats over 20 times. And second, the picture quality and camera work drop from actually impressive (for a low budget film) to shot-on-a-cheap-camera-phone awful.

 

In fact the picture quality across the board is terrible.  All four films were clearly shot on video and aside from the non-porn star scenes in Exterminator City, look as though they were transferred onto DVD with a blender.  The audio isn’t any better and the release has no special features.

 

Against my better judgment though, I will actually recommend this collection solely on the strength of Exterminator City.  For fans of horror, science fiction, high camp, and monstrously large boobs, this one film is definitely worth ignoring the aneurism inducingly awful other three.  Besides, no self-respecting retailer will charge you more than $5 for this collection anyway.

 

 

-   Matthew Carrick


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