Alien Outpost Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

Alien Outpost Blu-ray Movie Review

Talk about a quagmire.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 4, 2015

Restrepo was one of the more eye opening documentaries to come out of the United States’ long (and contentious) involvement in various combat zones around the world in the wake of 9/11. First person confessionals were combined with footage of interactions (both friendly and otherwise) with locals in one of the most dangerous outposts in Afghanistan, providing an up close and quite intimate look at the rigors of modern day warfare. Alien Outpost wants to recreate that same sort of ambience within a patently derivative framework which will no doubt remind many of fare like District 9, positing a ragtag group of fighters manning an isolated outpost that is part of a sporadic “clean up” operation that is attempting to put the final nail in the coffin of a mostly contained alien invasion. Any attempts to link this science fiction premise to actual current day events are equally sporadic, and deprive Alien Outpost of subtext and nuance, leaving a film that offers little innovation and (probably worse for a supposed science fiction “epic”) few special effects worth writing home about.

At least Alien Outpost shies away from the standard alien invasion trope by having the humans putting up a relatively brisk defense. Instead of a planet overrun with little (or big) green men, Alien Outpost details a planet managing to cling to its own hegemony while also trying to snuff out the remaining pockets of the alien forces which descended upon Earth years previously. That part of Alien Outpost is actually somewhat novel, but like so much else in this film, it’s never really developed beyond a relatively simple presentation that simply announces the “facts” of this premise and then supposedly leaves well enough alone.

The allegorical elements seemingly inherent in Alien Outpost receive a few cursory nods, especially with regard to the soldiers’ interactions with various locals, not all of whom are pleased that there are foreign fighters on their homeland (above and apart from the actual aliens). Some of the little vignettes dealing with tribesmen are well done, offering a suitably paranoid stance for the heroic fighting forces, as they’re never quite sure who’s on their side and who isn’t.

While the first person confessionals seek to provide some backstory while also slowly developing the sense of camaraderie between the outpost combatants, more often than not these sequences tend to simply stop the film in its already somewhat stumbling tracks. The use of frequent interstitial text cards eliding various plot points don’t help matters either, and seem to suggest (if only subliminally) that the film simply didn’t have the budget to depict everything it needed to in order to propel the plot to its next showdown.

A number of minor turf wars (including some internecine conflicts among various forces in the area) provides a bit of drama until some fitfully effective alien fighting scenes finally arrive. The film is hampered by fairly low grade special effects, a deficit which is supposedly overcome (at least partially) by the conceit that the handheld cameras of the documentary crew are affected by the close proximity to the aliens, not to mention the fact that the documentary cameramen are understandably more concerned with saving their own skins rather than capturing fantastic footage of the various brouhahas. But for a film supposedly built upon aliens, one which indeed mentions the very invaders in its title, this film is almost shockingly under equipped with any memorable monsters.

The final firefight manages to finally work up a requisite amount of energy, but even this sequences is hampered more than helped by the jiggly cam proclivities that are more often than not on display throughout all but the first person confessional segments. There’s a lot of sound and fury in the final few minutes of Alien Outpost, but by then most science fiction fans will have probably already decided that this film signifies nothing (much).

Alien Outpost Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Alien Outpost is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. When director Jabbar Raisani and director of photographer Blake Clifton (both of whom also co-wrote the feature) simply plop their camera down for a second or two, this presentation looks suitably sharp and well defined. Unfortunately these moments are few and far between and tend to be limited either to the first person confessional interstitials (which offer great fine detail and lustrous black levels) or brief establishing shots out in the wild. The bulk of this film offers hand held "jiggly cam" that adds the impression of softness simply because the camera never anchors on any given item for more than a nanosecond. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, one of the conceits of the story is that the cameras themselves experience various anomalies, and those moments tend to (one assumes intentionally) devolve into pixellated swarms and the like (see screenshot 13). Several sequences, including some recurring moments in field tents and the like, are bathed in a yellow hue and suffer from a minimal but noticeable dusting of noise.

Alien Outpost Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Alien Outpost features both a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 and DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track. Obviously those whose home theaters are so equipped should opt for the surround track, which is quite boisterous during the attack sequences, offering some nicely immersive and at times rather bombastic gunfire effects. Unfortunately for action movie soundtrack junkies, Alien Outpost is not a series of set pieces strung together with brief narratives, but is instead talkier, including the glut of first person confessionals which dot the premises. These by their very nature offer little in the way of surround activity, though in all cases dialogue and monologues are offered with excellent fidelity. Dynamic range is very wide here, but in what tend to be brief bursts of activity.

Alien Outpost Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interviews with Cast and Crew (1080p; 16:23) also includes some good behind the scenes footage.


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 3:22)


• Trailers (1080p; 3:40)


• Audio Commentary by Director/Co-Writer Jabbar Raisani and Director of Photography/Co-Writer Blake Clifton was a little too giggly for my personal tastes, though the two do get into quite a bit of background information on the shoot.

Alien Outpost Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There are some interesting ideas wafting through Alien Outpost, but co-writers Jabbar Raisani and Blake Clifton don't seem to know quite what to do with some of them. There's virtually none of the "meta" quality that gave District 9 (to cite just one example) such force, something that's especially odd given this film's obvious references to post-9/11 fare like Restrepo. Performances are generally good here, but the story meanders somewhat and isn't helped by too many text cards bridging narrative gaps, as well as some lackluster CGI that fails to deliver on the perceived menace of the aliens. Genre fans may find this of passing interest, but as more of a curiosity than as any undiscovered classic, and for those technical merits are generally very good (video) to excellent (audio).