Three close friends, Reid, Darrin, and Ben, attend a party together, during which Reid vanishes. Unable to locate him, Ben and Darrin leave. Driving home on a dark, secluded road, the two nearly run over Reid, who is inexplicably standing in the roadway in a daze.
After the incident, Reid becomes fascinated with aliens and Area 51. Reid spends months planning to infiltrate Area 51 to uncover the base's secrets. However, Reid's obsessive extraterrestrial research leaves him detached from his family and he loses his job. Reid recruits Darrin and Ben to help him infiltrate Area 51. Together with Jelena, another conspiracy theorist whose father worked at Area 51, they contrive to sneak onto the military base using signal jammers, night vision goggles, Freon-laced jumpsuits, and pills to mask their ammonia levels.
Jelena's father advises the group to investigate a man who works at Area 51 in a key position. Ben, Reid, and Darrin follow the man home from the airport, sneak into his house, and steal his security badge. Ben drops his three friends off in the desert outside the base and waits for their return. Reid, Darrin and Jelena bypass the base's perimeter defenses. They use the stolen security badge to enter the complex. Exploring the base, the trio discover a lab containing anti-gravity material and a lifelike liquid substance. They also find an alien spacecraft in a hangar, which only Reid can enter or interact with. The three reach the 'S4'-level of Area 51, which stores the complex's most secret information and experiments. They trigger an alarm and are swarmed by guards. Darrin gets separated from his friends. Eluding the guards, Darrin narrowly escapes a predatory alien and retreats to the base's higher levels.
Reid and Jelena venture deeper into the complex to discover a cavern-like structure beneath Area 51. There they find articles of clothing, toys, and later, pods containing human blood and organs. The two stumble on a colony of sleeping aliens. An alien awakens and chases them out of the cave into a different section of the complex where they find themselves in a white chamber. As Reid examines a series of alien symbols, Jelena is suddenly dragged away by an unseen force. Reid locates her, but she is unresponsive and in a trance. The chamber suddenly loses gravity, revealing them to be on board a silver alien spacecraft, from which Reid's camera falls and plummets to the ground.
Darrin successfully escapes the complex to learn that all base personnel are evacuating Area 51. He exits back into the desert, where he finds Ben waiting. Darrin explains their group was separated, and he frantically urges Ben to drive away; however, the car's engine dies. The camcorder captures the pair's abduction from the car.
In a post-credits scene, an old man the group previously interviewed finds Reid's camcorder, which is still-recording.
Production for the film began in the fall of 2009.[4] In April 2011, CBS Films hired director and actor Christopher Denham to do some rewrites on Area 51.[5] Peli filmed re-shoots in 2013. In August 2013, Jason Blum stated that the film had finished production and that Peli was "tinkering" with the film in post production.[6] On March 14, 2015, Blum confirmed that the film was officially done and would perhaps be released on VOD.[7] On April 23, 2015, it was announced the film would open exclusively in Alamo Drafthouse theaters and through video on demand platforms on May 15, 2015.[8]
Release
Box office and sales
The film was released in Alamo Drafthouse theaters exclusively for a weekend-long-run, and on video on demand platforms beginning on May 15, 2015, courtesy of Paramount Insurge and Blumhouse Tilt.[9] The film made a total of $7,556 for its weekend long-run.[2]
Reception
Area 51 was heavily panned by critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 13% based on reviews from eight critics.[10]
Brian Tallerico writing for RogerEbert.com gave the film one and half stars and mainly criticized the film's generic plot and pacing.[11] A. A. Dowd from The A.V. Club gave Area 51 a 'C'-rating and criticized the film's originality when compared to Oren Peli's previous film, Paranormal Activity.[12] James Shotwell of Under the Gun Review gave the film a D−.[13] In a review where he gave the film no stars, Bob Brinkman of HorrorNews.net wrote: "Area 51 is an interesting concept, with mediocre delivery, and a scare factor of zero. It is lazy film making at its worst, and it is easy to understand why the movie sat in the can so long (six years) prior to being released. It was not worth the wait."[14]
