Movie Review: The Salena Incident (2007)

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What a looker!
Here we go again! The Salena Incident was recommended by a friend, who simply said. Watch it! So, the first time the misses saw it for sale on the interwebnet, she snapped it up. 3-5 working days later, it landed on our door mat and swiftly found its way into the DVD player. I don’t mess around me, if a reliable source gives me gold; I’m not going to ignore it.
The film starts with some top notch special effects as what is obviously an alien craft comes crashing down to Earth. Some wonderful acting follows, as we see the Directors grandfather and all his bowls pals dressed in their best military issue uniform. Clearly discussing the afore mentioned crash. Cut straight from there to a group of America's finest marines descending many, many floors underground to search and contain anything they might find. Obviously, this goes pear shaped very quickly!

After this very swift opening, we are finally introduced to the main protagonists of the film. A group of convicts being transferred and the guards accompanying them. Complete with the "Clarice Starling" doctor, they set off on their journey. The cons include Mini Michael Madsen, Mexican dude, skin-head and token black guy (Terribly sorry if that sounds racist, I am just pointing out that film is the epitome of cliché). It isn't long before the convicts go Cyrus the Virus on the guards and after the bus suffers the most inconvenient flat tyre in history they seize their moment! How on earth did the writers come up with this storyline? I can see them now. All sat around watching Con Air and not an original idea between them! Anyway, with the help of some of Mini Michaels' crumpets, the Cons take control.
I am not going to go into much more detail but after winding up in the town of Salena, it is immediately apparent that all is not well.

Right. Down to business. Although Salena has received some incredibly poor reviews and there is no love for this film from anyone it would appear. Well, I actually quite enjoyed it. The acting is dross, the special effects have gone A.W.O.L and the script is dire but who cares? It may be the horribly deformed lovechild of Con Air and Alien Resurrection but when you mix the worst ingredients together sometimes you get a tasty dish.

With everything said, The Salena Incident is the kind of film that you used to see at 1:30 in the morning on some random Film channel (UK readers may be familiar with Zone Horror or whatever it's called nowadays), it doesn't take itself too seriously and neither should its viewers. This is a prime example of what I am trying to achieve with this blog, Sometimes I read reviews and wonder how they can compare this film to the likes of Aliens etc. If I could put it into some kind of perspective. 20th Century Fox probably spend more on the daily buffet table than this film cost to make! For this reason, I can appreciate and enjoy the efforts made in making low budget horror films.

I am going to end it there as this is really starting to sound like a rant.
In conclusion, The Salena Incident was worth every one of the 150 pennies laid out and both the misses and I really enjoyed it.

Released: 2007
The Salena Incident (2007) on IMDb
My Rating: 4.75(ish)

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