Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? No.
Should you watch this for free? No.
Secret ending? No.
Running time: 106 minutes (~1.75 hours)
“Extraterrestrial” is a sci-fi horror film that revolves around a group of teenagers coming up on a crashed alien spaceship. But they slowly discover the horrors that have been unleashed by the spaceship, and must fight to survive the night. It stars Brittany Allen (April), Freddie Stroma (Kyle), Melanie Papalia (Melanie), Jesse Moss (Seth), Anja Savcic (Lex), Gil Bellows (Sheriff Murphy), and Michael Ironside (Travis). It is rated M-18.
You can tell that the folk behind “Extraterrestrial” are seasoned horror movie goers, because virtually every horror stereotype has been force fitted into the movie. Granted, scary movies sometimes require the protagonists to lose a bit of common sense to get into the inextricable positions that entertain us so, but “Extraterrestrial” just piles it on like it was going out of sale. It’s difficult to take a movie seriously when it’s as stuffed full of clichés as this is.
Highlights
Michael Ironside is fun as the ornery old man
If there’s one thing Michael Ironside is good for, it’s putting that deep, gruff voice of his to some old-fashioned patriarchal smackdown on young kids. Travis could easily have been the stereotypical old man, but the character is saved by Michael Ironside putting some old-timey roughness to the man. It’s a pity he couldn’t play a bigger role, because he’s the most interesting character by far in the film.
Letdowns
Clichéd scares
There’s no getting away from the fact that the whole film relies heavily on the use of overused horror techniques in delivering the frights. It’s OK to rely on some tropes, but not for every single scare tactic in the film. It becomes so derivative that even if there were a shred of originality in the film, it’s buried under the mound of stale stereotypes.
Overdone colour corrections
I understand that it’s to set the mood and all, but it’s like they only had two filters to work with in post-production — bright orange or dark blue. Again, it’s used as a film device to signify the tone of the scene, but there can be variations in the usage of colour, rather than setting it to either extreme.
Random usage of handheld shots
Especially at the beginning of the film, there are many switches from traditional camera angles to the “found footage” type of shots for no rhyme or reason. If this were maintained as a storytelling device, it would be justified, but that whole idea is dropped later in the film, only to be replaced by another strange set of shots that are seen from the individual character’s psychotic view points. It’s strange, abrupt and serves no purpose.
A cheesy ending
As with the scares, the ending is so rife with cheesiness that you’re really not sure what to make of it. The film ends without bringing any insight to human nature to you, nor is there a point to having gone through the scares. The worst part is that it wasn’t scary to begin with.
“Extraterrestrial” feels like a student project done with a professional budget, and it shows. There’s no salvaging this bag of clichés.
“Extraterrestrial” opens in cinemas 23 July, 2015 (Thursday).
This review was also published on Yahoo.
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