Charlie (Clarke) and Shelley, in the middle of dividing their belongings in a storage unit after breaking up, find themselves trapped in the secured building with their friends, the employees, and an alien from a crashed military plane.
Beyond the joy of seeing Noel Clarke, a.k.a. Mickey from Doctor Who, still working, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. That is not to say it didn't have its odd moments.
A dog dies off-screen very early in the film. It is never explained how the creature got from the crash site to the storage units... we first see it in the basement, so maybe it came in through the sewage system, but who knows? Also, if the cargo container originally containing the creature on the plane crashed right there, why on Earth isn't the whole block crawling with the military personnel the news reports say are locking down all of London? You know, searching the wreckage instead of zooming past the woman and her dog in a bizarre motorcade.
I suppose they didn't have the budget for search team extras. Would have killed the plot anyway.
Other than those nit-picky details, this was a tense, atmospheric (at times) alien horror film. The gory bits are super-gory. The R rating is purely for the blood, viscera, and disturbing imagery. The view of a guy with half his jaw missing and his tongue waggling about will stay with you.
It did have very funny moments, however. Six laugh out loud moments, most of them involving the cheap, windup dog they find in a storage unit, and a very human bit when the power keeps going out. Since I live in the boonies near the Gulf, the power goes out frequently and I can relate.
The only eyeroll moment was at the very, very end when we see an alien space ship and it has little bug-like legs dangling off it. Human spaceships are shaped nothing like human beings. Why do we assume that all bug-like aliens have bug-shaped spacecraft? Why? It's idiotic.
As a crafter's movie, if you like stories about humans and aliens, I think you'll love this and it's not so intense that you need to watch every second. I gave it four and a half out of five stars... and really, it was that spaceship at the end that swiped the half star. I'd watch a sequel that picks up where this left off, especially if Mr. Clarke is also in it.
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