Douglas Tait, Jolene Andersen and Richard Grieco headline the story of a Los Angeles SWAT team thrown head-first into a fight for survival against the backdrop of an alien invasion in Attack Of The Unknown, the latest directorial work of Crossbreed and Escape From Ensenada helmer Brandon Slagle.
An undercover bust explodes into a major gun battle as Maddox (Tait) and Vernon (Grieco) lead the incursion to catch elusive crime boss Hades (Robert LaSardo). Despite losing one of their own and wrangling with the FBI, the bust is a success, though as the story unfolds, the Feds receive tips regarding threats on Hades’s life and Tait and his team are assigned to transport him to County jail for heavier supervision.
The job is a less-than smooth one as Tait, Vernon and the rest of the team are left stranded with their vehicle disabled and the arrival of a mothership looming over the city following the crash of a small spacecraft earlier on. As the aliens begin their raid onto the city, the team hoofs it into the County building along with a civilian tourist vlogger in their wake, trapped and forced to devise a life or death plan of escape from the city, that is, if the aliens don’t get into the building first.
Slagle’s Attack Of The Unknown runs purely on low-budget sci-fi action fanfare no different from most, but entertains on a level that let’s you enjoy the performances for a flawed, albeit worthwhile genre thriller. Among its ensemble cast, the film calibrates much of its focus on the roles of Vernon, and Hannah (Andersen) who carry the second half of the film in service to an essential plot twist that gives them an advantage against the aliens, and apparently, this isn’t the first time the aliens have paid visit to Earth either.
Production design is feasibly well done, while the more impressive work is aboard the alien craft and set pieces, and costume design. The tentacles the aliens use are all CG and the actors all do fairly well in keeping up as the plot moves forward and the bodycount rises. Much of the outdoor devastation seen overlooking the city is CG, limited only to a enough select few shots to illustrate the story and the involvement of the characters.
Granted, Attack Of The Unknown is as watchable as most other rentals for films directed in the same capacity. It borrows elements from other sci-fi thrillers but also touches a bit on allegory with humans and their reliance on smartphones, which may or may not have been accidental depending on how far between the lines you read. Aside from this, the only real gamble is whether or not the filmmakers deliver something worthwhile to genre fans, and to Slagle’s credit, Attack Of The Unknown does.
Not every director can pull this off though, and while there are some independent filmmakers out there who claim to achieve this on a zero budget, what’s important is that a director shows growth. Slagle’s latest is a small step up from Crossbreed, even if some of the plot ornaments and twists here feel a little absurd, and so if you’re still a fan of the likes of Grieco and LaSardo after all these years and you enjoy a little skin in your R-rated sci-fi action, tentacle violence and gore and a production that still bares its share of frills far from the fields of big scale spectacle and political correctness, with Attack Of The Unknown, at least you’ll know what you’re in for.
Attack Of The Unknown arrives On-Demand and Digital beginning August 28 from Gravitas Ventures.