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Alien Opponent: Uncut Edition
Score: 65%
Rating: Not Rated
Publisher: Shout! Factory
Region: 1
Media: DVD/1
Running Time: 91 Mins.
Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi
Audio: English

Features:
  • Audio Commentary
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Outtakes
  • Trailer
  • Photo Gallery

I've watched quite a lot of sci-fi alien movies in the past, but the new Alien Opponent is in a total league of its own! It is more of a dark comedy than sci-fi, so be prepared to go into it with that in mind. Otherwise, you won't be prepared for what you're about to watch.

Tom Mazurski (Kevin Shea) owns a junkyard, along with most of the surrounding town. Tom is married to a younger woman, Meghan (Ashley Bates), probably half his age, who is cheating on him with an extraordinarily stupid man named Bradan James (Cuyle Carvin). When Tom catches Meghan in the act with Bradan, he starts to beat her. Meghan's mom kills Tom with a hammer to the head and she tells Meghan that they can now cash in on his life insurance and such. Just then the aliens land. Tom's three friends are over drinking beer with him while all this is happening. When they find Tom's body, they just assume that the aliens killed Tom (with a hammer). Of course, none of his friends last very long either. Meghan and her mom realize that they need Tom's body to get the life insurance payments, but they can't get it because of the alien. They decide that the solution is to make a TV commercial offering a reward of $100,000 to whoever can enter the junkyard and bring back the body, "so that they can have a proper burial." Really though, we all know she just wants it so they can collect the insurance money. Quite a lot of people show up for that kind of money with more types of guns and weapons than you can possibly imagine. Rules are simple: The person(s) who bring the body back in one piece get the reward. They can all attack each other for all momma cares; just bring the body back for the money.

In town, Paris (Jessica Alexandra Green) works at a very disgusting diner full of roaches, dealing with disenchanted patrons who don't tip. She really hates her job and life, so she and her friend Lux go to sign up. Linnea Gold (Adrienne LaValley) is a stripper who just wants to do whatever she feels like, so she signs up for the hell of it. Deborah Dallas (Sari Gagnon) was left on the side of the road in a French maid's outfit. She shows up to kill the alien, but she's only there to "look for a husband." She hooks up with Brooklyn (Jeremy London), who's also there to kill the alien, but not to find a wife. There is also a priest there named Father Melluzzo (Roddy Piper) and there's even a karate instructor, Master Splinter (Paul Mauriello), who brings his child-age students! More people continually show up as the days go on, so many that they start charging $10 admission. It becomes more like a three ring circus than anything. The alien has a junkyard full of equipment to make robots and weapons out of and the knowledge to do it. I'm pretty sure almost everyone showing up to attack him has an IQ of 90 or less (except for the stripper and the father and they're not much smarter).

As for the alien, well he's quite a bit more intelligent than anyone out there. Alien can animate dead body parts, like a head or an entire body, to communicate with them. He tells them that his spaceship has crashed and not to harm him or he will kill them. It sounds to me like he just wants to get out of this hellhole town, which I don't blame him! He's got an entire junkyard full of parts to make whatever weapons and robots he wants, plus he's got alien slugs that will crawl inside a person and make them explode. In this battle, who would you bet on winning? The one thing I really like about Alien Opponent is that you don't really like any of the characters, so when they die horrible or hilarious deaths, you laugh equally as loud. If anything, you're cheering for the alien.

There aren't many special features available and what is there really doesn't enhance the experience very much. There are deleted scenes that really just show more victims showing up to die. One thing I did find amusing is that you can tell the movie was filmed in full screen and black bars were added to make it wide screen. At one point, you can see the bars fail to fully cover the background on the right side. For the most part, the acting is quite bad and very overacted, especially at the beginning. The quality looks just a bit better than a home movie, but after a bit of time, you don't notice that as much either. If you're looking for a bloody and violent movie, you'll enjoy Alien Opponent simply to laugh at the outlandish deaths. Otherwise, I really don't recommend watching it.



-Cyn, GameVortex Communications
AKA Sara Earl
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