Alienator - So bad it's... almost okay

Believe it or not, 'Alienator' was released in the same year as 'Total Recall' and only one year prior to 'Terminator 2.' I mention this only because 'Alienator' is a complete rip-off of the first 'Terminator' film (in case you hadn't kind of guessed from the title - although also seems to borrow the plot from one of the 'Critters' sequels, but that's another story).  I guess when they say that 'budget doesn't make a film' they weren't really comparing any of Arnie's output of the era to this pile of...

Now, I know 'Alienator' is hardly meant to be Shakespeare and there's always a market for 'so-bad-they're-good' films (me, for example - I always describe my DVD collection as 'entertaining' rather than 'good'), but this is a hard watch.

An intergalactic criminal escapes from a penal colony to Earth and a bounty hunter is sent to apprehend him (or disintegrate - whichever comes first!).  Now, you probably aren't expecting much from a film with such a deliberately cheesy title as 'Alienator,' but my advice is, if you're hoping to get anything out of this at all, is to set your sights real low.

There are a bunch of people on Earth who get stalked by the alien bounty hunter - they can't act.  There is an old soldier who comes into the film about half way through who is about the only character who you'll actually care about, maybe because he's a cut above the rest in terms of acting ability, or just because he's given about two lines of back story. 

The costumes look like something out of a seventies glam rock pop video.  The bounty hunter herself looks like a cross between - again - a glam rock star and someone who's bumped into a load of scrap metal that was left over from a seventies 'Dr Who' set.  She's not scary.  She's not sexy.  She's just laughable.

There's a - semi - sub-plot set back on the penal colony in space.  It's pretty forgettable and if you took it out you wouldn't lose any of the story.  There's little in the way of action and the special effects are anything but special.

Now, I wouldn't mind all these negative points.  As I said, I like a lot of 'so-bad-they're-good' films.  However, the main problem I had with this film was that everyone plays it straight.  There's never a sense of the film-makers knowing they're making something terrible and actually owning it.  It comes across as if they're trying to make something genuinely scary, or action-packed.

It is bad.  I did stick with it just to see how bad it got.  There are cheesy B-movie films that are like this which I can watch again and again.  This one I think I'll leave it there.

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