In a secret, underground, government laboratory, a mad scientist (John Savage) uses an alien rock to combine 100 different strands of predator DNA to make a monster that then gets loose and kills most of the lab personnel. A military team lead by the assassin Talon (Michelle Goh), is sent in by a high ranking official (Martin Kove) to kill the beast and “clean up” anything left behind.
From the fine folks that brought you Crocodile 2: Death Swamp and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon comes Alien Lockdown, a movie that asks the question: “Why watch Aliens when you can watch a low-budget rip-off?”
Yup, it’s another “Bug in a Can” movie, but this one offers the color green. If you are a big fan of the green, you’ll love this film as the green filter is on and the green gels are in. If you have red-green color blindness, well, there’s probably another “Bug in a Can” film where everybody looks blue.
Surprisingly, the over-abundance of green doesn’t look bad. Director Tim Cox and cinematographer John S. Bartley have a good eye for a shot. There’s a moody, sinister feel to the film that’s a notch above normal low budget fare. Individual scenes and the soundtrack rise above its clichéd roots.
Cox doesn’t do as well when directing people, although the fault could be placed with the actors. Savage, Goh, and Kove all went to the Prozac school of acting where, no matter the emotion involved, all dialog must be presented in calm…slooow…precisely…e-nun-ci-at-ed…tones.
The monster looks like the Alien (from Alien) with the Predator’s head (from Predator), as performed by a guy crawling around on his hands and knees. The design, though stolen, wouldn’t have been bad if it had stood on two feet. Hint to filmmakers: people in suits pretending they are quadrupeds don’t work.
The by-the-numbers story was helped by twists in the final act. Not that the twists haven’t been done many times before, but there were enough of them that it almost felt like something new. Almost.
So, if you’re saying to yourself, “I’m scared of change. Why can’t thing always be the same? Why can’t I just watch exactly what I’ve seen before?” then Alien Lockdown, may just be for you.