Bullet Points: Attack of the Unknown
H.G. Wells kicked off the alien invasion craze when his The War of the Worlds novel was first published in 1897. Decades later, the Orson Welles radio adaption of The War of the Worlds made pop culture history on October 30, 1938 when listeners around the country mistook the radio drama for actual news believing an alien invasion was taking place on American soil.
The first alien invasion movies would hit theaters in the 1950’s with movies like 1951’s The Day the Earth Stood Still and not surprisingly a 1953 film adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds.
The alien invasion theme would continue in cinema in the decades that followed with big budget blockbusters like 1996’s Independence Day and the 2005 remake War of the Worlds starring Tom Cruise and directed by Steven Spielberg.
2020’s Attack of the Unknown continues the long standing alien invasion movie tradition…
- Drug Busters: The movie starts off in very non-alien invasion style, we are inside a S.W.A.T. team van (that’s special weapons and tactics for those in the know) as they prepare to embark on a major drug bust of notorious drug kingpin Miguel “Hades” Aguirre (Robert LaSardo, Last Man Standing). We meet the team with the standouts being the captain of the S.W.A.T. team Maddox (Douglas Tait), Vernon (Richard Grieco, The Demolitionist) and the tough chick of the team, Hannah (Jolene Andersen). The bust is a success and plenty of bad guys are blown away and Miguel is arrested. It is not all good news though, the Feds show up after all the action is over and take over the case and worse the undercover cop who infiltrated Miguel’s operation is shot and is rushed to the hospital.
- Booze Drinkers: Maddox, Vernon, Hannah and the rest of the team hit the bar after a rough day at work… I should point out that this isn’t just any bar, this is a titty bar and if the violence and language in the opening scene didn’t justify Attack of the Unknown’s R rating, the nudity in this scene certainly did. The team receives a phone call during their frivolity that their friend the undercover cop did not make it… the mood quickly turns somber. The bad news continues for Vernon the next day, when he gets the results of his most recent physical and learns he has Myeloma, a type of blood cancer. At first this seemed a little like piling on, but it made sense as the movie progressed.
- Transporters: Despite the fact that the FBI pulled rank in the Miguel Aguirre case, they still turn to S.W.A.T. to transport Miguel to the county jail until his trial. Every precaution is taken, to ensure that Miguel makes it to where he has to go and there are no attempts by the powerful drug lords he works with to bust him out… but at the same time the transport is happening the entire west coast is falling apart… there are electrical disturbances, the sky looks like it is on fire… AND THERE IS A GIANT SPACESHIP HOVERING ABOVE THE CITY!
- Blood Harvesters: The electrical disturbances cause the transport vehicle to die, so the S.W.A.T. team is forced to get Miguel to the county jail on foot… once they are outside the vehicle they witness first hand the chaos that is going on. They also have their first alien encounter and lose their first team member courtesy of some very powerful alien tentacles! Once they get inside the county jail, the team has to figure out what they can do to stop these aliens with the help of the county jail staff… and a Texas podcaster that was vacationing in Los Angeles and managed to get swept up into the action. Interestingly enough it is Miguel Aguirre who ends up shedding some light on the aliens… sharing a legend of aliens who visit earth every hundred years to harvest human blood (which is medicine to them) and suddenly Vernon having cancerous blood made sense!
Attack of the Unknown is obviously a low budget film that is not going to get mistaken for Independence Day anytime soon. Given the budgetary constraints the movie still put forth some effort and I got the impression they were making the most out of what they had.
Ironically, by the end of the movie, the whole blood cancer angle that I originally thought was a needless subplot, was something I felt they should have played up even more.
This is where I play up the Bonus Bullet Points…
- Familiar Faces: Tara Reid (Sharknado) appears briefly in the film during the flashback scene of the aftermath of the last alien invasion 100 years earlier… Fans of late night Skinemax classics may recognize Robert Donovan, who played Weller, the head honcho at the county jail.
- Exploding Helicopter: If you like your exploding helicopters to be of the fake CGI variety, then there’s one moment in Attack of the Unknown that you are really going to love.
- Favorite Quote: “Stop cursing, it’s fucking judgment day!” – Old Lady
- Broken Rule: I mentioned the scene at the bar earlier, but I didn’t mention a bar fight. That’s because Attack of the Unknown broke the bar fight rule.
