London, circa 1995, let the alien autopsy begin... (Alien Autopsy (DVD))

Member Name: CaptainD

Product:	Alien Autopsy (DVD)
Date:	05/07/06 (228 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quite funny in places...

Disadvantages: ... but nowhere near as funny as it could have been

Alien Autopsy is based on the true-life events in 1995 of Ray Santilli and Gary Schoefield of their presenting footage of an alien autopsy, supposedly from the claimed UFO crash site at Roswell in 1947. How close the events in the film are to true life, and indeed how true the claims of it being a genuine film, I guess only Ray and Gary will ever know!

However the film follows their adventures from London to America, following Ray’s dream to buy Elvis memorabilia and make a killing selling it back home. (Better than his normal dodgy video pirating outfit…) Gary is there because… well, because unwittingly he funded the trip with the sale of his car… One man, Harvey (played by Harry Dean Stanton) who has an Elvis reel (cine film) turns out to have been in the US Air Force. He comes back with news of another film reel Santilli might be interested in – which turns out to be that of the alien autopsy. Only trouble is, by the time the film has been transported back to England, it has deteriorated so much that none of it is viewable. So the solution is… to film their own alien autopsy!


At the beginning of the film we meet documentary producer Morgan Banner (Bill Pullman), who isn’t really interested in the two until he finds out that putting Ray Santilli’s name into Google (nice product placement lads) brings u nearly 4 million results. (Which is odd as I did it this morning and it returned 145,000 results, and even “Alien Autopsy” brings home just under 2 millions results).) Banner is sceptical throughout but listens fascinated as Santilli and Schoefield recount what happened. Played by Ant and Dec (Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly), who will be well known to UK audiences but probably unknown to anyone else, the two friends are diametric opposites. Ray Santilli (Ant) is the reckless rule (and law) breaker, with Gary Schoefield (Dec) being reserved and sensible almost to the point of anal retention. Among their friends are a kebab shop owner who does wedding videos on weekends (making him a natural choice for director of the autopsy!) and several other unsavoury characters. There is also the extremely strange crop circle fanatic / gangster / lunatic (who funded Ray’s buying the original reel, who won’t be happy to see his money go on dissolving film…

The plot takes us along the process of making the film and then, against all odds, successfully marketing it to TV stations worldwide. There are however people who know about the original film and don’t want it to be released…

I’m not quite sure what went wrong with this film. The plot has great potential, the cast all did well, and there was a fun music score to jolly things along. There were quite a few funny moments, and one or two very funny moments, but overall I felt disappointed with the film. The style was deliberately documentary in nature, which worked quite well, but I guess I was expecting this to be an all-out comedy whereas it was more a retelling of events without particular emphasis on the humour. There was also some needless profanity and a bit of male nudity, which didn’t ruin the film but certainly didn’t add anything to it. Director Jonny Campbell’s TV roots do show a bit here, as do the cast’s, so it kind of feels more like watching a long TV style spoof documentary than a film.

Overall I did enjoy watching Alien Autopsy, just not as much as I thought I would. Recommended for those who like sci-fi, have a bit of a twisted mind, and don’t mind a bit of fake gore (it is an autopsy after all!)


Read Ray Santilli’s story at http://www.v-j-enterprises.com/santstry.html

Summary: Quirky, mildly diverting sci-fi - but could have been so much more.