Extraterrestrial arrives on Earth in a blu-ray release this Tuesday.
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| "Always walk towards burning things that fall from the sky. Nothing bad can happen." |
The
Vicious Brothers, that writing-directing duo behind the Canadian based runaway
found-footage horror hit Grave Encounters,
are back with their take on the alien abduction subgenre of science fiction, Extraterrestrial. The technical merits of their previous
hit are all there to be seen, from the unique use of found footage, the
combination of scares with satire and their uncompromising attitude toward the
paths their characters tread. The homage
to the likes of Communion, Alien and most notably, Fire in the Sky, are on display in full
frontal nudity. And
yet where Grave Encounters provided a
send up of huckster Travel Channel shows about paranormal investigation shot in
night vision in addition to being a horror film, Extraterrestrial makes the mistake of filming high quality
photocopies of familiar ground treaded time and time again by infinitely more
effective thrillers of the same ilk. It
has the blueprints of Fire in the Sky but
not the heartbeat.
The
cast of teenager stock characters do a serviceable job of running away in
distress, breaking down, consoling one another before coming to some kind of
closure with regard to their dark destinies.
Veteran horror icon Michael Ironside’s cameo appearances as a madcap pot
grower who knows a bit more about the bizarre events than he leads on are the
highlights of Extraterrestrial,
giving science fiction fans some Bruce Campbell rib tickling. Even Sean Rogersen, the ill-fated television
host and last survivor of Grave Encounters,
shows up as a skeptical cop who gets a dose of reality more shocking to his
senses than he bargained for. Extraterrestrial also manages to make
room for a gory goof on the alien anal-probe trope. Once these pass by, however, the film
devolves into another hide and seek thriller of partying teens meeting Jason
Voorhees in the form of little grey men with big black eyes.
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| "Always use lube for the alien rectal probe!!!" |
As
said before, the technical merits for a low budget indie effort are strong with
competent CGI work and a fair amount of production design echoing Travis
Walton’s journey into honeycomb Hell in Fire
in the Sky. There’s even a moment
where a dreaded machine ready to perform the inevitable alien medical
experiments on a helpless human victim that feels cut and pasted right out of The Matrix when Neo awakens and has his
plugs removed.
While not necessarily
trying to set itself apart from the movies the Vicious Brothers clearly love,
their reverent devotion to those kinds of movies also prove to be a detriment
to the film’s solidarity. Where the
smaller and cheaper found-footage oriented Alien
Abduction from earlier in the year managed to more or less retell the same
story in a unique way, including depicting an abductee being sucked into the
spaceship while still holding a handicam in hand, Extraterrestrial falls closer in line to something like Dark Skies where the familiarity of the
premise and presentation tend towards becoming forgettable.
Related Article: The Best and Worst of Alien Abduction Movies
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