Oren Peli: the king of Found Footage. It wouldn’t be a misguided title since, after all, the guy took the genre created by The Blair Witch Project, gave it a facelift, grossed millions (with Paranormal Activity), massified it and became the genre’s greatest exponent by producing a ton of similar films like The Bay, the Paranormal Activity sequels, and Chernobyl Diaries, as well as the revered Insidious saga. Area 51 is his second installment as director; and, considering the circumstances of its release 6 years after it was shot, and being released without too much fanfare, the smell of rottenness is felt from afar. In any case, the conclusion is that Peli is a better producer than director, and Area 51 ends up proving that his talent was a one-summer swallow.
I’m not a particular enemy of Found Footage; leaving aside the improbability of someone still filming the moment when a bug is chewing them raw, the truth is that the style has a large share of effectiveness beyond the limitations of the guy behind the camera. We’ve already had footage of Yeti, Bigfoot, invading aliens, vampires, zombies, apocalyptic plagues… why not film – in first person – an incursion to Area 51 itself, the one where the U.S. government supposedly hides flying saucers and alien corpses? The premise sounds interesting beforehand and, added to Peli’s name on the cover of the video, one is already buying the movie. The problem is that the script is very poor and the development leaves a lot to be desired.
Honestly, Area 51 is not the worst film ever. It has some jolts, there are some well shot moments and the development is not what you would call idiotic. The problems lie with the characters, who lack credible motivation to get into such a mess. I mean: these skinny guys bought tons of state-of-the-art electronic equipment – heat sensors, pills to camouflage ammonia from breathing, refrigerated suits to be indestructible to thermal visors, etc. – to get into a top-secret place just to peek into the base’s secrets. Not for a moment did they think about the possibility of being captured/killed by security forces, or even have they devised any way to escape when the raid is over.
As well as that, the screenplay rides on incongruities, such as infiltrating the base chief’s house to steal his electronic access card to all levels of the facility… a raid that will take place two days later, which is more than enough time for the guy to issue the alert and change the codes. There are too many things where the characters say “nothing’s going on!” and the script chooses to spare their lives, whether it’s that no one saw them robbing the base chief’s house, or that the helicopters didn’t spot them on one of their runs, or even that the base guards (who have seen them, taken pictures of them and questioned them) have been dispatched with a minimal investigation into who they were… or, at least suspect they are planning to break into the top-secret facility. The silliness abounds and, for the first half of the film, we have a whole theater full of inconsistencies.
Things pick up when the boys enter the base. Honestly, it’s shockingly low production values – the base looks like a big, dilapidated factory inside, including a few old-fashioned elevators – which kills the story’s credibility. Not for a moment do you think this is Area 51 but an abandoned oil plant. It also doesn’t help that Oren Peli’s camerawork is too shaky – there are many moments when you can’t quite grasp what’s happening on screen – or that these guys are talking about obvious things we’re all seeing. And when they come across the alien materials cache, things take a predictable turn – ultra-powerful aliens brought back to life and separated from the rest of the world by a miserable little grid? The fun fact is that the film opens up a pair of parallel narrative threads, so we have two guys filming in first person the frightening events triggered by their illegal incursion into the base. The editing intercuts them – as if it were a more traditional narrative – but that kills the immediacy, claustrophobia and effectiveness of the first-person Found Footage style. And not even the ending – abrupt, inexplicable, unsatisfying – ends up improving things.
With a stilted and unbelievable story, confusing camerawork, few scares, poor ideas (many of which were already in another genre title like Alien Abduction) and a truncated ending, Area 51 is not exactly the best film to rent. It’s a poorly cooked film that should never have left the shelf where it sat dormant for 6 years. Hard to recommend something that frustrates rather than entertains, which makes it a title to avoid.
