Alien Siege is a Sci-Fi Channel (nowadays SyFy) original TV-movie, released in 2005. It’s an American movie, but almost completely filmed in Bulgaria. Almost all extras and actors with minor roles in the movie are Bulgarian, who are overdubbed with English voices. Some scenes are even filmed in the real offices of the Bulgarian UFO Studios who were responsible for creating the movie.
The movie is directed by Robert Stadd, who has a long visual effects career (he was special effects supervisor of Galaxy Quest, Nutty Professor II and many more). To date this is the only movie he directed, although he also directed some episodes of a TV-serie. He also contributed to the story of this movie.
I am reviewing the US Region 1 DVD, distributed by Image Entertainment in 2007. Its DVD menu is one of the cheapest I have seen and the only notable special feature is the single commentary audio-track by the director and several of the actors. Let’s not spend too much words on the single unrelated movie-trailer and the still pictures also available on the disc. The movie duration is about 90 minutes.
The main story is what really makes this movie interesting. When the movie starts we see an alien ship attacking Earth and we see various news channel reports of the invasion. Right then we see a broadcast of the (completely nameless) US president explaining that Earth is being attacked by an alien race called Kulku, a technically very advanced humanoid race. We learn that the civilization of Kulku is being destroyed by a disease and that they require human blood for an antidote. The US president explains that the world leaders have been forced to sacrifice 8 million lives and if they would not provide these, they will simply destroy the whole planet. As such, they saw no other option than to cooperate with them. America’s share is 800.000 people.
The US government sets up what is cynically called a “lottery” system. When you are one of the people who are chosen, you are required to cooperate when the US army arrests you. You are then brought to a “processing center” where they take all your belongings (obvious reference to the Holocaust here) and you’ll be transported to a spaceship which flies to a space-station where they extract your blood and kill you in the (very painful) process.
Scientist (about every sci-fi B-movie features at least one 
) Dr. Stephan Chase is a single parent, his wife died recently of cancer. He has one daughter, 20 year old Heather. It is revealed early on that Heather is one of the unlucky victims of “the lottery”. Stephan visits her work and persuades her to leave immediately with him. US army is about to check the visitors, but they manage to get out unnoticed. Unfortunately the army soon finds them and after a brief attack Heather is arrested and being transported to a processing center. In normal cases it’s possible to swap persons after signing some contracts, but Dr. Stephan Chase soon learns that he can not take the place of his daughter due to some mysterious reason. They are not willing to let Heather go. He soon joins the Resistance, a heavily weaponed group who tries to free captured people before they are sent into space.
What I love about this movie is the fact that we see the story in the eyes of multiple angles. Some of the humanoid aliens hate that they have to kill innocent humans, but they realize it’s the only way to save their race and so have no other choice. Others of them do not have any mercy at all. Later in the movie we meet the US army general, responsible for reaching the US goals (played by Carl Weathers, of Rocky and Predator fame) and his view is also understandable (his motto basically is that for every person that is freed by the Resistance, another innocent life is taken) . He is being pressured as Kulku thinks America is way behind schedule for reaching their 800.000 people promise.
There are a lot of action scenes in the movie, overall they are not too bad. Some of the big action scenes, where multiple groups of army soldiers, aliens and/or resistance members are firing at each other are really good done. What negatively impacts the movie, in my opinion, is that the movie’s main theme gets repetitive after a while. Heather is captured and freed multiple times at various points in the movie, after a while you can’t help but think “oh no, they’ve got her… again!”. A little bit more variety would have been welcome. Also, I thought that the main character, played by Brad Johnson, was a little bit too tough… while other people gets killed, he survives and gets away with basically everything (even after being defeated after a major attack on an US army soldier, they leave him alone instead of arresting him while he and tried to hide his daughter and injured and threatened US soldiers). And he obviously also knows the unusual craft of flying an alien spaceship from a space-station and landing on exactly the correct spot on planet Earth…
I found the acting in the movie most of the times surprisingly good (as always compared to other B-movies), most of the characters are quite believable. The quality of the special effects range from OK to very good. The look of the aliens are a little bit of let-down though, they just do look like humans, apart from having no eyebrows (well, in honestly bleached eyebrows would be more to the point ) and having a weird piece of plastic on their cheek (which they apparently can conveniently use to communicate with each other). On the other hand they call themselves a humanoid race, so I guess I shouldn’t make a big point of it. Most of the sets look very convincing and I think a lot of time have gone into choosing the right places to film. I made a remark about Bulgarian actors who were overdubbed with English voices, but I didn’t find it distracting (unlike Transmorphers, were sound really seemed off at some places), I wouldn’t have known if it was not told in the director’s commentary soundtrack.
What’s also cool is the level of details, there are almost always people in the background just doing their stuff. Also in the beginning, when we get to see a public bar in a mall where daughter Heather is working, the people who are eating there seem to be nervous and feeling uneasy. It helps setting up the mood dramatically. The movie does not take itself too seriously though, there are somewhat humorous scenes too, probably to not make the feeling of the movie “too dark”. Not necessarily a bad thing or wrong choice.
It’s not the best movie ever released, but there’s something I really like about it nonetheless and it’s one I come back to again and again. Also, director Robert Stadd seems genuine enthusiastic on the DVD commentary track, I always find it a plus when people are proud of the work that they do. There were obviously issues while writing the script (four persons are credited for the story and it is revealed no less than 15 versions of the script have been written, the final one was finished while filming was started), but at least this didn’t seem to ruin the movie.