War, what is it good for? Well, apparently for a generally reliable genre of film in which to insert characters and hope the lofty setting alone will garner some respect. Except if wars have happened since the dawn of man, then the devices of this genre have also worn some heavy grooves over time, and Alien Outpost slips into every one of them. Thoroughly confused how what you assumed to be a sci-fi film is actually a clichéd army film? My bewilderment mirrored yours, believe me.  Alien Outpost is an almost disrespectful war mockumentary with a smidgen of sci-fi.

Granted, taking this sort of film all that seriously is to put too much effort into the whole affair, but the level at which the film abuses war stereotypes is hard to ignore when not much else is happening on-screen. The film, directed by effects guru Jabbar Raisani, is shot documentary style (though with an inordinately unbelievable amount of good angles and coverage, if you get distracted by things like that, as I do) and provides insight into the lives of the soldiers placed at Outpost 37 in the year 2031. It’s been 10 years since aliens invaded earth, wreaking mass destruction and death. A brief montage of news clips and narration clue us in on the history of the initial attack and mankind’s fight back. We chased them away, but a few stayed on earth, hanging out in a demilitarized zone in the middle east. This is where Outpost 37 lies.

The men of the outpost are each given screen time (on a sound stage strangely enough, no explanation provided) to be interviewed and offer some back story. Each of them seems to represent some sort of soldier cliché. The one attached to his mother. The one who fights for his fallen brother. The ones representing their home countries proudly. The jokester. The two besties who went through boot camp together. Everyone has a nickname and everyone thinks—despite the almost constant state of attack they are under—that the whole thing is a fun excuse to shoot some ammo. Other than these brief interviews, and a few scenes making sure we understand how casual and buddy-buddy the soldiers are—except their leader, General Dane (Adrian Paul), who is of course always intimidatingly serious—the film is almost entirely a shaking camera of gun fire and men with bazookas, machine guns, and in other modes of military combat.

There are too many characters to really learn anyone’s name, but the losses come soon and often, without much incentive to mourn them. Within all this chaos one would think there’d be plenty of sci-fi action as well, however the armored aliens, or “Heavies” as they are called, appear on-screen midway through the film and then pop up sporadically and with hardly a straightforward look as the camera throughout the film is as shaky as they could possibly make it. I will say what we do see of the aliens is quite impressive. As visual effects supervisor for Game of Thrones, and plenty of other effects experience under his belt, Raisani stretches his budget and the glimpses we get are noteworthy. But he does the film (and his own skills) a huge disservice not giving us more. A rushed ending provides some spectacular visuals, but the plot is so confusing and goes so quickly it’s hard to focus long enough to appreciate it. Clearly Raisani did not understand who his main subject ought to have been.

There are a couple of so-called plot twists, but with so little investment they too seem to get lost in the jostle and action. The film seems determined not to be a big metaphor for Middle Eastern warfare, to the extent of overstating just how much the locals in the area are also at the mercy of the Heavies, and yet first-time writers Blake Clifton and Raisani chose just such a location. In all the world of places aliens could hole up, it feels distinctly contrived.

All in all those looking for an adrenaline fueled action sci-fi film will undoubtedly be bored by the constant interruption of the documentary film and the serious lack of aliens. Those looking for an innovative war film with an interesting new enemy will be nauseated by the constant sway of the well-manned, documentary crew’s cameras. Whatever target Alien Outpost was aiming for, it missed entirely. A surprising feat with such considerable ammo.

Alien Outpost releases in select theaters on Friday, January 30th.

Rose McGowan’s debut short film, Dawn, is a surprisingly original and well-executed revision of a 1950’s teenage romance gone terribly awry. The film opens with our quiet protagonist Dawn sitting in the back seat of a car, getting hassled and badgered by her combative mother and disengaged father. Pulling into a gas station, amidst a brief pause in her mother’s nagging, Dawn turns in time to see a young gas station attendant smiling kindly at her. Charming with his classically American good looks and manner (a sort of cross between Joaquin Phoenix and John Wayne), the film begins with the apparent moral purity of Andy Griffith at Sunday School. Yet when the fated lovers finally meet face to face, the story suddenly takes a much darker turn.

The film is shot in a sort of High Southern Gothic-style, and draws heavily from Flannery O’Connor’s short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find, about a family’s encounter with a well-mannered serial killer in Georgia. Indeed, in a post-screening Q&A session with the director, McGowan stated her original intention was to make a film adaptation of O’Connor’s original text, before the rights were pulled out from underneath her at the last instant. But the upshot of this was perhaps for the better–the film that was produced boasts a strong literary basis yet an original plot line. Dawn makes an interesting parallel to Blue Jasmine, another recent film that makes an adaptation of an older text (in the latter’s case, A Streetcar Named Desire). The works are distinct in-and-of themselves, yet anyone familiar with the earlier texts will make the connections and benefit from an enriched experience of the piece.

Besides these literary aspirations though, McGowan’s film goes well beyond thematic adaptation–her portrait of Dawn as a naïve girl, caught between her own sense of danger and unease and the submissive, “easy going” gender-role that ultimately destroys her, makes for a wickedly dark lesson. This subtext, paired with clever references to the Hollywood culture present at the time, makes for a much more nuanced narrative than one might expect from so a short thriller, ostensibly about teenage love. The film is bitingly ironic, yet still manages to pull it off with tact and ease.

This was a real gem of a short film. Dawn‘s salient literary and cultural references, paired with the film’s high production value, gorgeous shots, its slow-burner buildup and gripping conclusion, bring something to the table for everyone, and portends an excellent directorial career for Ms. McGowan. Something else interesting to know is that McGowan’s first feature length film, a satire about murderous reality show competitors in Miami, is apparently in the pipeline. There’s something I’d keep my eyes open for if I were you.