Some films are made with tons of financial backing, renowned writers, and a star-studded cast, and yet they can still disappoint audiences with their lacklustre delivery. Welcome to G-Town has the direct opposite effect.
This clearly shoestring budget feature by young director brothers Ben and Nathan McQuaid holds the charm and silliness of renegade filmmaking at its heart, with cheap plasticine gore and awkward clunky scripting that gives the film a refreshing difference to the overly polished cinema of today. Clearly inspired by cult cinema of the 1980s, Welcome to G-Town is a fun experience if audiences are able to forgive its flaws and simply go along for the (intergalactic) ride.
Filmed primarily in the heart of Glasgow, Welcome to G-Town focuses on media graduate Bill (Danny McAllen) as he struggles to find work that suits his qualification, a very familiar landscape for many young people across the UK. Meanwhile, an alien invasion is quietly underway as the city is taken over by shapeshifting creatures who take on the form of local Glaswegians that they’ve killed. With a surplus of jimmy hats, kilts and traffic cones worn as accessories, the aliens don’t appear to be accomplishing a particularly successful mission, and when Bill and their worlds collide, chaos follows.
The dialogue in this film is quite awkward and unnatural, particularly with the human characters, yet it doesn’t turn have the chance to grow irritating as it is counteracted by the aliens who are genuinely attempting to learn the local dialect in a way that pokes fun without feeling insulting. There is a very clear affection for Glasgow within the veins of this film making it a joy to watch especially for those who have any sort of association with the city themselves. At the same time, the awful alien masks purchased from the Halloween section of the local supermarket remind audiences that Welcome to G-Town is made with a light hearted spirit and needs to be watched with the same openness.
With its off-kilter comedy style and whacky abundance of alien and human mockery alike, Welcome to G-Town is as much of a joy to watch as it feels like it was to make. If the McQuaid brothers wish to continue filmmaking, it would be a pleasure to see what they plan to do next, hopefully with a more ambitious budget so they can truly push the limits on their gross out effects and slapstick style violence.
Welcome to G-Town had its English premiere at FrightFest 2026 on Sunday, August 30
