Alien Abduction - Too many flaws to be taken seriously

Yes, it’s another ‘found footage’ film.  This time it has aliens in it (as opposed to the typical supernatural entity).  Have you ever seen a ‘found footage’ film?  You have?  Then you probably don’t need to see this one.  You probably also don’t even need to read this review, as you’ll probably know/predict everything I’m about to say based on your own knowledge of the genre.

We join our *unwitting* heroes – a family of five on a camping holiday in the middle of nowhere in America – as they pitch tent and generally film (possibly the best ever) footage of UFOs.  As with every ‘found footage’ film, we’re (unsubtly) informed of the reason why someone has taken to documenting every single last second of the family vacation.  In this case – an autistic boy who likes to film everything.  This means that, no matter how many family members are abducted or mutilated, he just keeps on filming regardless – and no one ever seems to tell him to get that flippin’ camera out of their face!

Another problem with ‘found footage’ films is that many – like ‘Alien Abduction’ – tell us at the beginning (and I hope that this isn’t too much of a ‘spoiler’) that the footage was later found by the military.  To me, this kind of tells me everything I need to know as to who will or won’t survive this encounter.

So, the aliens come and scare our family.  This technologically-advanced race appears to be able to fly light years across the galaxy, yet only seems able to pick off one human one by one.  Seriously, they take one family member, then just sort of go away.  Now, once they’re satisfied they’ve got one, they return, after allowing the remaining family members to get a little further closer to safety, only to snatch another one.

The aliens are seen about as much as most ‘villains’ in found footage films.  It’s all shaky camerawork, so you don’t really see as much as you probably want to.  You get the family running, crying into camera and then more running, before the inevitable conclusion.  You get to see a little bit of footage on the space ship, but, if you’ve seen ‘Fire in the Sky’ (or any X-file episode covering alien abduction) then you’ve probably seen scarier/better.

If you like alien films, watch one you already own (because you probably own better).  If you like ‘found footage’ films, then you probably also own a better one, too.  This one just gets too daft.  Seriously... when you see how high a camera can fall from and still work, you’ll know what I mean (please tell me you can buy that make of camera on Amazon – I want it!).

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back