Kids vs. Aliens (Film Review)

The sign of a truly great horror film is one that can connect with multiple types of fans – from the long-in-the-tooth veteran to the fresh-faced cinemagoer looking to get their first fright.

And that's exactly what you get in the latest collaboration between Hobo With A Shotgun's Jason Eisener and John Davies, Kids vs. Aliens.

Gary (Dominic Mariche) is just like any other kid, he wants to explore and make movies with his two best friends, Jack (Asher Grayson) and Miles (Ben Tector), while his teenage sister Samantha (Phoebe Rex), often left to babysit the trio, has dreams of ditching the superhero capes and wrestling figures of her everyday life in favour of hanging out with the cool kids.

When the gang's apocalyptic video shoot is interrupted by local bully Billy (Calem MacDonald) and his cronies (Emma Vickers and Isaiah Fortune), he sets his sights on seducing Sam and throwing a rager of a Halloween party at her parents' home.

The only problem is that once the party is in full swing, a gaggle of uninvited guests crash the party – guests of the extra-terrestrial kind. The gang must fight for survival against the alien invaders that use humans to fuel their spaceship that has crash-landed on Earth.

For the first half of Kids vs. Aliens, we are thrown into a typical hazy teen film jam-packed with every conceivable trope you can think of. A gang of best friends with a love for cinema that will come in handy later? Check. A psychotic bully and his henchmen with a charismatic side hiding his dark intentions? Check. An inexplicable lack of parental guidance that means the youngsters can roam as they please? Check, check, and check.

This nostalgic first act descends into chaos as Billy's Halloween party is invaded by aliens in a fraught, dramatic segment that will have you hanging onto the edge of your seat. We get slight glimpses of the aliens before this – blurred through a window, or emerging from the lake in the fog – which makes it all the more disarming when the audience is thrown straight from these little snippets into a full-blown assault from the intergalactic villains.

As Sam straps on her diving gear and journeys into the lake to rescue her friends, we are similarly plunged into a world of guts and gore as the narrative ramps up a notch in terms of horror.

Until this point I thought Kids vs. Aliens might just be a cutesy romp with teens being chased by otherworldly beings. What I certainly wasn't prepared for was exposed guts, melting skin, spitting blood and all-manner of other gruesome sights that were a real feast for the senses.

The practical effects are a sight to behold, heightened by the technicolour madness of the aliens' underwater lair bathed in smoke and bright lights reminiscent of many low budget sci-fi flicks.

Though both halves seem somewhat mashed together, this chaos is perfectly suited to the wider narrative. This is a film about kids battling aliens, after all. It's a film about humans versus extra-terrestrial beings, good versus evil, two warring siblings, and the ‘weird kids' that don't fit in becoming heroes.

And it is the cast, a relatively unknown one at that, that breathes life into the film. Rex embodies the insecure teen turned valiant hero perfectly, and as her journey unfolds its hard not to rabidly cheer her on in the final act. Similarly, MacDonald is superb in the role of Billy, injecting a sense of danger into the film before the aliens have even risen from the depths of the lake.

Kids vs. Aliens acts as the perfect bridge to bring together different fans of horror. It comes baring gore and some genuinely horrifying scenes for those of us accustomed to the genre, and a young, relatable set of characters for new fans looking to find themselves in the film.

With enough f-bombs to make Samuel L Jackson blush and a heart of gold to boot, Kids vs. Aliens is truly out of this world.

Kids vs Aliens premieres exclusively on Shudder on April 14.