Movie Reviews

UFO Movies You Need To See Before The Big Invasion

Published

3 years ago

February 15, 2023

If you have been watching the news lately, you have probably noticed the uptick in UFO sightings and subsequent retaliation. Our airspace has been compromised by more than just a Chinese weather balloon and the U.S. government has confirmed it.

But before everyone panics about UFOs, let’s shed some light on movies that addressed this phenomenon in more terrifying and fun ways. At least, then we can prepare for the invasion by taking tactics created by the creative writers who already landed in Hollywood.

Extraterrestrial (2014)

Colin Minihan directed this underappreciated horror movie with his brother Stuart Ortiz under their Vicious Brothers (Grave Encounters) moniker.

If you haven’t heard of this film, you’re not alone, it never seems to appear on anyone’s “favorite” list. But, that’s a shame because it is actually a wildly entertaining alien movie with some pretty impressive special effects.

Signs (2002)

One of the creepiest movies in M. Night Shyamalan’s oeuvre, Signs is a must-see for people wondering if E.T.’s are friendly or ferocious.

We won’t spoil that surprise here, but it is safe to say after watching this you might want to double-feature it with another movie on this list, Nope.

Both are about a family experiencing an encounter of the second and third kinds, banding together to defeat what seem to be otherwordly visitors.

Fire in the Sky (1993)

This one is terrifying, maybe more than any other on this list except for Dark Skies. What makes this UFO story scary is not only that is it based on a true story but it’s presented in such a casual manner.

The abduction scenes are pure nightmare fuel and more than likely you will have unanswered questions as the credits roll. But that is wholly intentional.

Communion (1989)

Based on a hugely popular book of the same name written by Whitley Strieber in 1987, this movie starring Christopher Walken is based on a true story.

It’s about what Strieber believes to be his personal abduction by aliens. The author had trouble accounting for missing time but through hypnosis, he is able to recall his abduction and subsequent testing.

Dark Skies (2013)

This one is going to scare you. Let me repeat that: this one is going to scare you. It has been compared to Poltergeist in that a suburban family experiences supernatural activity, but instead of a ghost causing problems it’s visitors from another world.

Fans complain that this film is underrated, and we would have to agree. With relentless tension and unnerving atmospheric filmmaking, Dark Skies should not be missed.

Nope (2022)

It is no mystery that Nope is Jordan Peel’s love letter to Steven Spielberg. He references everything from E.T. to Jaws in this action thriller.

In fact, if you can pick out each Spielbergian easter egg through Nope’s own plotline, consider yourself a master fan of both directors.

A Quiet Place (2018)

What feels more like a reimagining of Signs with a silent twist, A Quiet Place outpaces Shyamalan’s alien film ten-fold.

The gimmick here is that the monstrous space visitors can’t see a thing but they can literally hear a pin drop. That premise alone sets up some very intense silent sequences that use the Hitchcockian rule of suspense to an nth degree.

War of the Worlds (2005)

Speaking of Spielberg, here is his version of H.G. Wells’ sci-fi classic. It’s Jurrasic Park meets Jaws meets E.T. starring Tom Cruise.

Of course, Steve is in his element with this action-packed blockbuster and there are times when the suspense makes you want to crawl out of your chair.

The Fourth Kind (2009)

A mass abduction of people by aliens in Alaska, or an example of synchronicity?

The Fourth Kind goes there and delivers an uneasy tale about many unrelated people experiencing the same terrifying thing. The movie presents itself as a “based on true events” documentary.

Did these things really happen? We aren’t going to tell you because part of the fun is how the movie tries to convince you that it is.

Slither (2006)

Fun and campy, Slither is just a really great time. Director James Gunn has been in the headlines lately for shaking up the DC Cinematic Universe. With what DC puts out there, we can see why he would want to.

That aside, Slither is a primer to what Gunn will give us almost a decade later. This pairs well with Night of the Creeps (1986) which makes sense because the director is paying homage to the creature features of the 80s.

The Thing (1982)

This cult classic has aged like a fine wine. Pre-CGI, there might be no better example of practical effects than in this film.

Not even the mastery of An American Werewolf in London can top this SFX spectacular. Rob Bottin is to be celebrated for his work on this film which has aged incredibly well and can still nauseate people.

Aliens (1986)

We have a bonus addition to our list: the iconic movie ALIENS.

Even though it’s not technically an invasion flick, we couldn’t resist including it in this list. You can’t go wrong with this renowned classic!

While we can’t guarantee that Hollywood has all the answers to repel an alien invasion, watching these movies will at least teach you how to scream and run in a coordinated fashion. So, grab some popcorn, gather your friends, and get ready to face the end of the world!

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Movie Reviews

‘ZombieCON Vol. 1’ Gets the Con Right. The Zombies Arrive When They Want To.

Published

4 hours ago

April 28, 2026

Luna Gray

ZombieCON Vol. 1 follows Rocket’s Rockets, a cosplay crew who are three-time regional anime convention champions, two of whom also wrote the film alongside their director, and it delivers a genuinely heartfelt love letter to nerd culture.

Just think Knights of Badassdom, a horror film that needs you to understand why these people care about what they care about before it can ask you to care about them. Although, I think the whole “Cosplay is lame”! Thing died out a long time ago.

The Comedy

The practical makeup effects look like the work of actual cosplayers competing, not Hollywood’s approximation of cosplayers competing, and the distinction is the difference between a film that is looking at this world from the outside and one that has been living in it.

The characters carry the specific mixture of expertise and softness that comes from living inside a somewhat shunned culture. However, ZombieCON Vol. 1 leans into that culture in a loving, non judgemental way.

The Scott Pilgrim energy in the fight staging earns its references rather than just pointing at them. The anime visual grammar is sincere, not ironic, which is the only register in which this kind of thing is actually funny. The film borrows inspiration from just about everyone but somehow manages to do it respectfully.

The Cast

Punkie Johnson came to this from Saturday Night Live, and the gap between her and the rest of the ensemble is perceptible in every scene they share. She finds the timing on lines that are still looking for their timing, lands the joke at the exact moment before the scene needs to move on, and the effect is that everything around her becomes more controlled in her presence.

Erin Áine as Claire carries the film’s stranger turns without explaining them. The character is asked to move from one kind of story into another, several times, in ways the film does not prepare you for, and Áine moves with it without telegraphing the transition or breaking register. Manny Luke’s Rocket is calibrated to produce friction from the opening scene, and Luke commits to it without softening it or winking at the audience about it.

What It Is

ZombieCON Vol. 1 has a first act that takes thirty-one minutes to produce its first zombie, a budget that shapes what the horror can do once the horror arrives, and a cast that makes both of those things survivable.

The audience for this kind of film has been burned before by entries that treat cosplay culture as the setup for a punchline. This one does not do that. It lives inside the culture rather than observing it, and the result is a horror comedy that earns the affection it is asking for even when the seams are showing.

ZombieCON Vol. 1 is free on Tubi.

Movie Reviews

‘Don’t Die’ Is a Good Friday Night Horror Film And That Is Enough.

Published

1 day ago

April 27, 2026

Luna Gray

Don’t Die hits UK digital April 27 via Miracle Media. Benjamin Stark wrote and directed it. It played Panic Fest 2024 and spent the better part of two years making the quiet festival rounds, waiting for the right audience to find it. That audience is you.

What Happens

Jenks, played by Theodus Crane, needs medication he cannot afford. He breaks into a small-town pharmacy after hours. This was supposed to be clean. Nobody was supposed to be there. The pharmacist, Julia, played by Virginia Newcomb, was working late. She gets shot. Not knowing what else to do, Jenks takes her exactly where she tells him to take her.

This turns out to be a remote cabin run by a small collective quietly distributing medication to people who cannot access it through legal channels. The Robin Hood framing is warm, and the film offers it genuinely before slowly removing the warmth.

The Turn

The group running the cabin is not irrational. They believe what they are doing matters. They believe the math is simple. People need blood and organs, medication costs money, two strangers showed up and nobody outside knows where they are. Jenks figures out what that math adds up to about two minutes before the film shows it explicitly, and Crane plays the moment of comprehension exactly right. Quiet. Still. The kind of fear that does not move.

Stark earns the horror here because the people doing terrible things are not doing them out of cruelty. They have a system. They have a purpose. No villain monologue. No sadistic speech. They are calm and businesslike about it. That calm is what makes the third act work. Horror is rarely as effective as when the threat makes a kind of sense.

The Cast

Crane carries it. He plays Jenks as a man who keeps choosing decency as the available options narrow, and that consistency is what makes the back half hit as hard as it does. The performance never reaches for sympathy. It does not need to.

Newcomb as Julia is the other weight-bearing wall. She has the harder job. Her character moves from victim to something more complicated without the script telegraphing the shift. She handles it without calling attention to the handling.

Joshua Burge rounds out the central trio as Randy, the friend who shows up when needed and clocks the situation faster than any reasonable person should. If you don’t have a Randy in your life, make sure to get one.

What It Is and Is Not

Don’t Die was marketed as horror. It earns the label by the end, but it arrives there through crime thriller territory, and the patience of the first two acts is deliberate and correct. The tension builds quietly. When the horror finally arrives it lands harder because of the time spent getting there.

The budget limitations are present and real. Small locations, a tight cast, minimal spectacle. Stark works within them rather than against them, and for the most part it does not show. The pacing stumbles in the back half, running about five minutes longer than it should in the wrong places. There are moments where the momentum stalls. Neither is fatal.

It does not have much to say about healthcare beyond using it as a mechanism for the plot. That is fine. Not every film needs a thesis. This one tells a good story, maintains tension across most of its runtime, delivers a few genuine scares, and knows exactly what it is. Most low-budget horror manages one of those things.

Don’t Die is on UK digital now. Good Friday night film.

Movie Reviews

Content Is Now on Digital. Watch It Twice.

Published

1 day ago

April 27, 2026

Luna Gray

Content, Adam Meilech’s screenlife horror satire, arrives on UK digital April 27 via GrimmVision following a strong festival run that included Grimmfest 2025. The whole film plays out across phones and laptop screens. It opens on a sham. It ends somewhere you did not expect to go.

What It Is

The opening scene drops you inside Therapals, a fake online therapy platform where the therapists are just untrained people trying to earn a paycheck. The first patient our protagonist connects with has the energy of an angry Ryan Reynolds and, with complete calm, tells her he is thinking about killing his neighbor.

From there Meilech begins stacking story on top of story in a way that will either lose you or thrill you, and which one depends entirely on your tolerance for the extremely meta. At the center is AJ, played by Meilech himself: actor, writer, director, stalker, kidnapper, psychopath.

While there is a clear line to be drawn from Content and Milk & Serial, Meilech provides a wonderful villain. His polite swagger and genuine enthusiasm make one of the most powerfuly wicked online personas I have seen in a while.

The Cast and the Method

The cast is Megan Boehmcke, Alex Mills, and Vaune Suitt alongside Meilech, operating under conditions that range from unpleasant to genuinely alarming. AJ records himself playing therapist to himself and plays the recordings back. He pays a stranger to pose as a mentor figure for his male actor, who believes he is in on a bit the whole time. He performs takes over and over in the Kubrick tradition until he gets what he wants. Eventually he just moves his lead into his apartment.

To get a real reaction during a shoot, he shows up and actually hits the actor. The poor actor, still in the scene, asks if they can reshoot. This dude is so desperate for a part, he is willing to show he can make his pain more entertaining.

Where It Sits

The several story arcs running at once can be genuinely hard to follow and Content is not interested in making things easier. That is a feature, not a flaw. The bad guy is normal looking. He lives in a shared apartment. He does not signal his intentions in any way that would help you see it coming. There is real secondhand cringe to watching private moments captured without the subjects knowing, which is the film’s most effective trick, and Meilech commits to it completely.

It lands somewhere between Milk and Serial and Creep in the first half, and ends up closer to Funny Games meets Better Watch Out by the final act. That is an unusual place to land. It is also exactly the right one. Content is available now on UK digital via GrimmVision.