Frightfest Halloween 2024: ‘Alien Country’ Review
Stars: Renny Grames, K.C. Clyde, Joseph Reidhead, Austin Archer, Charan Prabhakar, Barta Heiner | Written by Boston McConnaughey, Renny Grames | Directed by Boston McConnaughey
Director Boston McConnaughey co-wrote Alien Country with Renny Grames who, as well as being one of the film’s stars, is also his wife and collaborator on several shorts for their YouTube Channel. The film grew out of the making of those shorts and, from the start of writing to release, took up nine years of their lives. That’s a lot of time to invest in a project, was the finished product worth it?
Alien Country gets off to a fast start as a dirt bike rider runs from the police. Despite going off-road and jumping a river, he eventually finds himself trapped. He releases a strange glowing object from his bag before making a run for it on foot.
Nineteen years later Everly (Renny Grames; Apparition, A Crafty Christmas Romance) is making her own exit on foot, hitchhiking with her guitar in her hand and her car broke down by the side of the road. When her ex-boyfriend Jimmy (K.C. Clyde; Possessions, War Pigs) pulls up, she tells him she’s late, hands him something and takes off in his truck. As it turns out, she didn’t just mean late for an appointment either, what she handed him was a positive pregnancy test.
Meanwhile, Gus (Joseph Reidhead; The Maze, Green Flake) and Bo (Austin Archer; The Night Clerk, Riddle of Fire) have found something buried out on tribal land, something that sets of Geiger counters. When they attract the attention of the cops, they hide their find in what turns out to be the car Jimmy is driving in the demolition derby. A couple of collisions later, he’s on his way to opening up a portal to another world. And if he and Everly can use it to take a look at another world, whatever lives there can come through to ours.
McConnaughey and Grames started out with many of the elements of a down-home dramedy from cable TV, small-town life, a troubled relationship with one of them wanting to leave to pursue a career as a country musician, comic relief villains, etc. Then they added alien monsters, a good alien named Ben (Charan Prabhakar; Bookworm and the Beast, Villains Inc), some otherworldly hallucinogenics, and, somewhat straddling the two genres a gun-toting granny (Barta Heiner; Mythica: Stormbound, Beyond and Back) who is also an expert on local UFO sighting and the attempts to cover them up.
The result is an amiably silly sci-fi action comedy that hits some familiar notes, such as the identity of the prologue’s dirt bike rider, as Jimmy and Everly try to save their relationship while saving the world.
While the film keeps the gore off-screen, with the creatures conveniently dragging their victims out of sight before killing them, we do see a fair amount of the creatures in their various forms. The effects work best in brief glimpses and on the smaller critters, with some of the bigger ones looking off. But effects coordinator Logan Long (Christmas Bloody Christmas, The Dead List) and his team do a solid job of bringing them to life and killing them off again.
While not everything in the film works, and some of the jokes try too hard to be edgy, “Right now I trust the government more than I trust you”, most of it scary and funny hits the mark. The cast throw themselves into their roles and invest them with enough alien fighting energy to get Alien Country through it’s sillier moments. They also can play it straight in its more emotional moments without becoming overly sentimental or sappy.
Overall, Alien Country is a fun mix of thrills and laughs with just enough serious material to give it a human edge without getting too heavy. It’s the kind of film that was made for a weekend evening when you just want to have fun.
***½ 3.5/5
Alien Country screened as part of this year’s Frightfest Halloween event.
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