Alien Origin (2012)

"Found Footage" of a lost military expedition to the jungle that spends several days under attack by an unknown extraterrestrial force, eventually coming to a discovery that exposes the shocking origins of life on earth.

REVIEW: As far as Found Footage movies by The Asylum goes, Alien Origin from 2012 is probably their best one, although it’s still far from perfect.

This one is surprisingly well-acted, and where almost every other Asylum-made Found Footage movie takes place in a single house or building, this one is wide open with quite a large scope spanning a town/military base, jungles, cave systems, half-crumbled Mayan temples, and more. I really loved the visual variety to the set pieces. I also really enjoyed the uneasy creepy feeling and tension they portrayed quite well whenever there was a quick glimpse of the UFO, or when they find the skeletal remains of an alien in the caves.

My one big complaint though, and it does bring the score down for me, is that the alien seems to be invisible for the entire movie, so that kind of makes the action scenes really boring. That was a pretty big cop-out for not having to spend any money on special effects, and it also robs us of having a really awesome money shot at the end like most Found Footage movies do when they don’t show much throughout.

Still, there's enough other good stuff here for me to have made this one worth watching. It may not be perfect, but it’s the best of the Found Footage ones to date that are made by The Asylum, which is an area that they seem to struggle in. If you're not a fan of B-Movies made by The Asylum or the SyFy Channel however, then there won't be anything in this one that will change your mind on them and you'll probably hate it.

6/10 rooms in the Psych Ward