Alien Outpost is shot as a documentary following the events of soldiers fighting straggling aliens who attacked Earth 10 years prior. Specifically we follow Outpost 37 which is one of the few Outposts left standing. It’s undermanned and fear is high but somehow the men manage to stay as positive as possible and are even endearing. I don’t think it’s accurate to call Alien Outpost a horror movie per se, but there are some sci-fi horrific moments.

The performances in Alien Outpost are really what struck me with this indie flick. Each soldier is Reiley McClendon (The Kid) as Andros. I really felt for the guy! And that’s a big bonus for me with genre movies because most of the time I don’t give a flying fuck about the characters. Which is a significant and continuous failure in the genre presently. It’s always fun to see some asshat get theirs but it’s much more gripping if you actually want the characters to live. And that’s what each of these guys bring, with them. Hell, even Adrian “Duncan MacLeod” Paul himself did a fine job…but who doesn’t love Highlander?

Alien Outpost is the first feature length directorial debut for Jabbar Raisani who previously worked as an SFX designer on Predators, Fright Night (2011), Machete, and also on HBO’s Game of Thrones. His skill in SFX shines bright all throughout Alien Outpost. The aliens, referred to as The Heavies, are hulking beasts that are covered from head to toe in seemingly impenetrable armor. From the start of the movie, we are bombarded with images of the invasion. The first 5 minutes of Alien Outpost shows some of the best SFX I’ve seen in an indie movie in quite a while, hell even in bigger budget features.

Writer, Blake Clifton, is another breakout involved with this film. Like Raisani, he has behind the scenes experiences but in cinematography instead of SFX. Clifton worked on the same films as Raisani and evidently became good friends with the same passion: Science Fiction. Both of these guys are great at what they do, but a script supervisor and an assistant director who were familiar with the job would have benefited the movie greatly.

Performances and SFX aside though, the story does tend to drag, in the same way, that all found-footage/faux-documentaries tend to drag. There’s a whole lot of build up to the end result because that’s the only way these things work. Luckily we have likable and more importantly tolerable characters to help us through to that point.

Alien Outpost would have thrived as a short film, even as a 45-minute film. For a first feature though, Raisani and Clifton have made a path for themselves. With some future script development, the two could really break into the genre and make some really cool sci-fi horror. A genre that always needs some love.