Alien Abduction (C+)

"Fear the lights." No, seriously.

Brown Mountain, North Carolina is a wonderful place to go camping. Given its isolation, it's also a pretty cool spot to build your very own Unabomber cabin. The down side is that it's popularity is linked to a phenomenon known as the "Brown Mountain Lights," which occasionally appear at night and are classified as UFOs. Local legend says that when the lights show up, people disappear.

Following Alien Abduction's introduction, which is a pastiche of "found" video footage, news stories, and interviews, the film begins to document the Morris family's camping trip to--you guessed it--Brown Mountain. The film is created by an autistic boy, Riley (Riley Polanski), who seems to use the camera as a way to connect with and interpret the world around him. I've heard of similar cases, so I had no reservations about the film's reasoning on this subject.

The rest of the family include's Riley's mom Katie (Katherine Sigismund), his dad Peter (Peter Holden), his older brother Corey (Corey Eid), and his older sister Jillian (Jillian Clare). They set out for Brown Mountain in high spirits with Peter's trusty GPS to guide them. They make camp, do some hiking, and sit around the campfire. It's pretty idyllic, and the kids don't even squabble appreciably.

That night in the kids' tent, Riley is unable to sleep. He attempts to awaken Corey who tells him to close his eyes. The boy hears or sees something that causes him to leave the tent, and Corey and Jillian follow. In the distance, they see some funky lights doing some really funky things, and Riley and Corey make sure to get it all on film. The next day, they tell Peter and Katie about the lights they saw. If it had been me, I would've awakened my parents at once, or at least shown them the video. Peter seems somewhat skeptical, but everyone shrugs it off.

The family leaves their campsite and continues on to the next one. In the process, Peter's GPS sends them in an odd direction. Given that he trusts the GPS implicitly, he doesn't question where it's sending him. Time passes and the windy road and the prospect of being lost begin to take their toll on Peter, who gets pretty cranky as a result. To make matters worse, he's low on gas. Rather than turn around and go back the way they came, he continues on in the hopes he can find a gas station. Tempers flare after a crow hits the car, but everyone makes up and they continue on.

"Hey! We're lost! Can we use your intergalactic communicator?"

The family gets nowhere fast, passing a mailbox and, eventually, a mural/cross on the side of the road. A few moments later they find themselves at the mouth of a tunnel through the mountain. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the tunnel wasn't blocked up with many, many cars, their doors open, hazard lights on, and their contents strewn all over the place. Even more bizarre is that there are no people around. While the girls see to the call of nature in the bushes somewhere, the boys walk into the tunnel to look for signs of life... and boy, do they find them.

From this point forward, the movie turns into a frenetic cat and mouse game between the family (or what remains of it) and the alien antagonists. Riley continues to film as they return to the mailbox they saw earlier and follow a makeshift driveway to a cabin. They're greeted by Sean (Jeff Bowser), a reclusive fellow whose three favorite things are his guns, his dog, and his privacy. Though initially hostile, Sean reluctantly lets the family take shelter with him. Of course, no one is safe, and the movie rolls on to its conclusion.

That's a lot more than four and twenty blackbirds. Pie, anyone?

Overall, I liked Alien Abduction. The actors are all pretty good, though Riley is a bit wooden (this might be attributable to his autism). When the family is together they seem to genuinely care about one another, and their interactions don't feel out of character. Even Sean, the reclusive redneck, is well-placed and well-acted. The only thing I had an "Oh, come on now... really?" reaction to was when Peter announces that the family is low on gas and continues to press on regardless. Who in their right mind goes camping with their family and doesn't make sure the gas tank is full?

For a found-footage film, the special effects are adequate. The aliens look good at a distance and in silhouette, but the brief close-ups we get of them are plastic and rubbery. There's one or two relatively disturbing effects, but these take place late in the film and aren't overwhelming (meaning, they're subtle and unexpected when they do occur). The cinematography is fine, and is occasionally layered with effects that suggest interference of some kind. This acts as a sort of hint that something bad's about to happen.

Plot-wise, Alien Abduction doesn't break any new ground, but it does tell a decent story and the characters' reactions to their predicaments aren't unrealistic. There isn't much that hasn't been done in the found footage horror genre these days, so I can forgive certain cliches and stereotypes as long as they're done well. There's the standard "running away" footage and scary encounter footage that you'd expect, but the motion-sickness inducing shakiness isn't too bad.

"Beam me up, E.T.!"

In a nutshell, Alien Abduction is worth watching if you enjoy found footage horror flicks. It's scary at times, creepy at others, and shocking once or twice. Still, there are a few stretches of in-between time where the characters are allowed to display who they are, but this isn't anything new. In other films with less well-developed characters, this is definitely more of an issue. With Alien Abduction, I feel that it works pretty well, and there's always another crisis just around the bend.