Alien Abduction

Derivative? Definitely, even down to its generic title. Did it work? You betcha. Am I a sap? Definitely *and* you betcha, especially for jump-scare found footage efforts, though this makes some effort to make its heroes convincing, “everyman” protagonists, with a kid who handles a camcorder with the skill and agility of a seasoned cinematographer (blessedly sparing us too much queasy cam). Look, it kept me tied in knots, though I can’t say I’m proud of myself for responding so positively!

Mysterious lights, secluded North Carolina wilderness, lone family, aliens?

Wow.

Now that's a high quality handheld camera

Not a very good film, nice idea though but the poor acting degrades it.

Boring.

One of the bad examples of found footage horror.

Only masochists should subject themselves to this turdfest

This film tries to sell itself as real (a la Blair Witch), but fails miserably. I appreciate what they were able to accomplish on a limited budget, but it was otherwise plagued with poor acting, a blase script (and that's still being overly generous), no originality, and cuts from one scene to the next that proved most disruptive to the continuity and coherence.

Alien Abduction does a great job of technically and narratively playing by the rules, but that's the exact opposite of what needs to happen. Like so many other VOD found-footage flicks, it just feels like a normal screenplay with handheld cinematography, and it doesn't work like that. A great example of how too much polish can fuck up a found-footage movie.

There are times when skipping frames and interference effects can be used effectively to create a sense of dread and wrongness. In this z grade attempt at found footage they merely annoy and are primarily to hide the fact there's nothing else here.