Area 51
Genre SCI-FI
Theme Aliens & UFOs · Conspiracy
Style Found Footage
Director: Oren Peli · Cast: Frank Novak, Reid Warner, Darrin Bragg, Ben Rovner
The Story
Three young conspiracy theorists sneak onto the grounds of Area 51, determined to finally get proof of what the government has spent decades hiding there.
Verdict
Peli clearly understands the appeal of infiltration horror — the tension of being somewhere you’re absolutely not supposed to be does most of the early work here, before the story even needs a monster. It’s a smaller, scrappier film than his earlier work, and it plays that way, but the base’s actual layout and the characters’ method of sneaking through it are more thought-through than a lot of reviews give it credit for.
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Similar Movies
District 9 (2009) A far more ambitious, politically charged version of a similar government-secrecy premise. → Go to movie
Europa Report (2013) A more restrained, dialogue-driven alien story if the low-budget chaos here wasn’t for you. → Go to movie
The Fourth Kind (2009) Swaps a secret military base for a small Alaskan town, with a similar sense of official secrecy surrounding an alien presence. → Go to movie
