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ALIEN AGENDA: ENDANDERED SPECIES
Produced by Kevin Lindenmuth
Written, Directed, and Edited by Gabriel Campisi, Tim Ritter, Ron Ford, and Kevin LindenmuthMegan Cross - Debbie Rochon
Cope Ransom - Joel D. Wynkoop
John - Joseph Zaso
Burglar - Sasha GrahamDirector Kevin Lindenmuth follows up THE ALIEN AGENDA: OUT OF THE DARKNESS with ENDANGERED SPECIES staring Debbie Rochon, Joel Wynkoop, and Joseph Zaso. This time he's enlisted filmmakers Ron Ford, Gabriel Campisi, and Tim Ritter to help nurture his collaborative vision.
Lindenmuth has made a career out of his collaborative efforts. He works with other filmmakers to capitalize off of each person's fan base, allowing viewers to experience the film styles of someone new. The result isn't always particularly engaging. The caliber of acting can be radically inconsistent and sometimes so is the quality of filmmaking. Good, bad, or downright ugly, Lindenmuth gives everyone a fair shake.
As with OUT OF THE DARKNESS, ENDANGERED SPECIES gives up three stories detailing various points in the history of a future where Earth is held under the yoke of hostile aliens. This go around more backstory is provided on the aliens themselves. It turns out there are two breads battling for superiority, one called the Morphs who wants to assimilate and live peacefully with Earth, and a second group known as the Grays who wants the flat out extermination of the human race.
The wraparound deals with Megan Cross, a New York City reporter who doesn't know her lover of the past two years is a Morph. Feeling betrayed, she runs straight into the arms of the resistance movement and quickly rises to one of their top operatives.
Whether you buy into the segment or not depends on whether you can buy into Megan Cross as played by Debbie Rochon. ES was filmed around the time Debbie was just finding herself as an actress. She doesn't always hit the right notes, but she gives it one hell of a college try. It couldn't have been easy dealing with some of the overly melodramatic dialogue she's forced to regurgitate. After this film, you'll see a marked changed in how Debbie treats her roles and style of acting. By time she reaches AMERICAN NIGHTMARE, you won't see her missing a beat.
We jump ahead 10 years to find Megan a full agent in the resistance. Her assignment, help a newly found agent make it to safety 5 years after he was presumed dead. Before the agent can be brought to safety, he must retrieve an alien artifact he lost years before. Directed by Gabriel Campisi, the segment is slow and cumbersome eventhough its nonstop action. It's missing the same feel as the other segments and doesn't add anything new to the alien mythos.
B-movie favorite Joel Wynkoop brings the movie to it entertaining close as Cope Ransom, a poor-mans Snake Pliskin, as only Wynkoop can play him, tired and mean, with an eye for the ladies. (And where Tim Ritter digs up these beautiful women for Wynkoop to play opposite of is beyond me.) Ransom must head to Florida, now a radioactive wasteland, and gain reconnaissance info on a dimensional gateway the Grays are using to travel back and forth. An homage to Escape From New York, Tim doesn't waste a second as he allows Ransom's story to unfold from one ass-stomping to the next.
As uneven as the segments are, they do work solidly in painting a broader canvas. As involved as Lindenmuth's vision might be, I'm wondering if video is the best format to tell it. There's a spunk that lends itself wonderfully to episodic television, picture the Outer Limits meets Independence Day. ENDANGERED SPECIES is an angry cream puff of a movie bent on hardening your arteries and doing the most damage from within.
Brimestone Productions
Twisted Illusions