Kids vs. Aliens – Film Review

With Gary and Samantha’s parents out of town on Halloween weekend, a rager of a teenage house party turns to terror when aliens attack, forcing the siblings to band together to survive the night.

If you’ve seen V/H/S 2, you more than likely agree that one of that film’s best and most creative segments was that of “Slumber Party Alien Abduction,” directed by Jason Eisener. It took the traditional found footage format and placed it in a nostalgic setting and time period – our childhood.

It showed us a bunch of kids just being kids and having a great time with one another goofing around. But, fear strikes their hearts when they realize that their town is being infested by a group of terrifying aliens. Now, we have a full-length feature adaptation of it – once again directed by Eisener – in the form of Kids vs. Aliens.

Seeing as how the original segment of the story from V/H/S 2 was incredibly short, I was admittedly a bit worried about this feature film because I wasn’t sure how they would be able to make it work for a longer period of time, but alas, they managed to do so.

To be honest, though, this film does feel disappointingly short, running at a mere seventy minutes without credits. And to make matters even more frustrating, the aliens themselves don’t actually appear until a little after thirty minutes into the movie, so a lot of it is focused on the characters instead.

Thankfully, the characters and the banter they have with one another is interesting and fun enough to keep viewers engaged. It’s enjoyable to watch these young kids trying to make an amazing science-fiction action movie with the little bits of equipment they have. It’s kids being kids, basically.

Meanwhile, one of the kids’ sisters, Sam, pines over a guy that she meets one day while helping the youngsters film the movie and that only leads to danger. Although it can be a bit all over the place, I must admit that Kids vs. Aliens sure knows how to keep things moving and engaging. There’s really never a boring moment to be found here.

The special effects here are certainly less than spectacular, but some part of me thinks that this was done intentionally because of the 90s tone this movie has written all over it. Even though this film ditches the V/H/S franchise’s found-footage point-of-view, it still very much so feels like it fits into that world.

All of the child actors here do a fantastic job and really sell their roles, but by far my favorite performance here comes from Phoebe Rex who portrays Sam. Early on, they show us that she is a huge nerd for sci-fi movies and even created some sci-fi characters of her own.

This is why when later in the film she gets to do a lot of action-heavy stuff, it’s fun to see it all come full circle. Rex steals the show here, and I can only hope that we will get to see a whole lot more of her in the film industry in the near future. I guess only time will tell.

While certainly not without its flaws, Kids vs. Aliens is a delightfully entertaining science-fiction horror outing that has a few tricks up its sleeves.