Alien Express

2005 "America's Newest Bullet Train Just Got On The Fast Track To Disaster"
2.5| 2h0m| en
Details

A new super train is built when a meteorite crashes near by, releasing a tiny creature. Once it kills and consumes everyone on board the train, it begins to grow and multiply into hordes of different creatures.

Director

Producted By

Dead Rail Productions Inc

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Reviews

AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.
Helloturia I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.
Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.
Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
TheLittleSongbird I have seen worse movies off the SyFy channel, but that is not saying much. Everything that I dislike generally about the SyFy original movies is here. And where to begin is going to be start.1) The special effects are not quite Titanic II bad, but they still have a very artificial look to them. The train itself is not convincing at all, almost reminiscent of a miniature train with the inside shot elsewhere. That may not be the case, but that's how it seemed to me.2) A lot of SyFy movies have slipshod editing, and Alien Express is no exception. Actually a lot of it is so bad that everything in some scenes look blurred together.3) If you are looking for a good story, or a good telling of it, look elsewhere. The concept is okay if barely original, but like other SyFy movies the execution is awful. The story itself is leaden in pace, thin in structure and predictable in how it is written. There is also no real tension, thrills or suspense.4) Not only that, if you are looking for likable characters, Alien Express is not for you. The characters aren't just clichés of the genre, but also SyFy clichés. But clichés don't actually bother me as such, as long as they are well written and not annoying. Alien Express fails on both counts. The characters are underdeveloped, and at the end of the day, while there have been far annoying character before especially in the SyFy movies of the past three or so years, I just didn't care for any of them.5) Was I expecting the acting to be great? No, not really. But I was expecting some enthusiasm. I didn't get that. Everyone seemed wooden and pretty much phone in their performances.6) But if I were to single out the worst asset of Alien Express, it has to be the script. Although I do dislike most of the SyFy movies, I do keep watching them for the novelty value and to curiously see if they do anything worthwhile. I may have seen about 40 or so SyFy movies in the past couple of months, but few have had dialogue as atrociously bad as that of Alien Express. It's all stilted and spoils any attempts to give some tension or thrills with how unintentionally funny it is.Overall, a terrible film, even for SyFy. Not their worst, but towards the bottom end. 1/10 Bethany Cox
Amtrak_Mike What do you get when you put Lou Diamond Philips, Todd Bridges, Barry Corbin with a bad toupee, and an alien all on a train? You get a very bad movie called "Alien Express" or "Dead Rail" that would be more entertaining on Comedy Central's old series "Mystery Science Theater 3000." You name it, this awful movie suffered in areas of acting, plot, storyline, and special effects. In fact, the exterior passenger train shots looked like the production staff used a common HO scale model in front of a painted background! The rest of the special effects goes downhill from there.The plot is very predictable and is similar to two 1970's movies called "Horror Express" and a disaster movie called "The Cassandra Crossing." At least "The Cassandra Crossing" had a better cast, an engaging storyline, and real train scenes.If you want a good laugh and a movie to mock at a "B movie" party then watch this; otherwise, "Alien Express" derailed long before departing from the station!
Jack This is fairly typical for the Sci-Fi Channel: one-dimensional characters, a ridiculous plot, and terrible special effects. We've got some alien sock puppets loose on a train, and Lou Diamond Phillips does his best with what little he's given to eke out a performance. And save the day. Everyone else in this is utterly dispensable; the ex-wife who goes through the time-honored cliché of first disliking Lou, then of course comes to love him again at the end. The obnoxious State Senator who gets munched early on, and a gaggle of dull security guards who run around a lot. Then there's an eco-terrorist who is in this movie for absolutely no reason whatsoever, except to provide us with 3% more running around. He spends the whole middle part of the movie hiding in a box.The special effects really deserve their own paragraph. We start with a meteorite that flies through the air, trailing flames behind it, at about 100 miles per hour. According to the physics of this movie, if you exceed the posted speed limit in your car, atmospheric friction may cause you to burst into flames. Then it lands on the hood of a car, coming in horizontally. Sort of like a velcro ball landing on a velcro floor I guess. It really doesn't damage the car much, just bends up the hood a little bit. Later on Lou gets in a helicopter and goes chasing after the train. Even though the train only had a two minute head start, it takes a good half hour to catch it. The CGI is so bad that the helicopter looks like it's as big as the hills it's flying over. Then it flies into the side of a mountain - this effect must be seen to be believed. It looks like they took a jar of gasoline and threw it against a wall, then superimposed the flame effect over the helicopter. About 10 times too big. No wonder the helicopter couldn't pull up in time, it was carrying five tons of nitro glycerine. Then the eco-terrorist eventually blows himself up, but instead of exploding in all directions like most explosions do, he explodes upwards like a cannon aimed into the air. Then there's the whole deal with not being able to stop the train because that would allow the little aliens to get off, but it appears that the aliens can actually fly faster than the train is traveling, so why this would keep them on the train I have no idea.Overall, if you've got a couple of hours that absolutely need killing, and it's down to this movie or reruns on the Food Network, well, come to think of it, some of those chefs are kind of cute. Usually these movies have at least one or two things about them that make it possible to sit through them; maybe there's a sexy girl, some T&A, or a character that actually has some personality, or some suspense or, well, something. I really didn't see any of that here.
Steve Riese Not a terrible movie... But there are monster scenes where you will be rolling on the floor laughing - not a good thing for a action/thriller. The acting is generally pretty decent for a SciFi channel movie. Barry Corbin plays a credible US senator, and Lou Diamond Phillips again gives us a decent military/police/sheriff/agent/marshal figure. The special effects are well, "special" - for example, the external train shots are very obviously a model train.Goofs: A meteor strikes a stationary car in the opening scene. The car bursts into flames but does not budge an inch. After the impact, the meteor is lodged in the top of the car's hood - impossible from the low angle that the meteor came in at.Spoilers...A good portion of the movie's events are predictable, from the helicopter crash ("Pull up, pull up!"), to the fact that the annoying people get it in the end, to the classic blown bridge over a 1000 foot gorge awaiting the train, to the sequel set-up at the end.The scenes showing the aliens attacking are hilarious. They are vicious cute puppets and move at lightening speed - remember the Monty Python rabbit? Spoiler Goof: In one scene four people shooting clip after clip cannot hit a single creature because they move at lightning speed. Later in the movie Todd Bridges rigs up a mini flame thrower which he uses to dispatch a number of creatures at close range. On several occasions, Lou Diamond Phillips is able to easily grab creatures with his bare hands.