VOD Review: Extraterrestrial (2014)

(aka Space Encounters.)
Release Date: November 21st.
Country: Canada. 
Rating: Unrated.
Written & Directed by: The Vicious Brothers.
Starring: Brittany Allen, Melanie Papalia, Freddie Stroma, Gil Bellows, Michael Ironside... and Emily Perkins! 

As "Alien Invasion" flicks go (or maybe it's more like an Alien Abduction flick?), Extraterrestrial was a pretty fun watch. Its story was predictable, and its characters were seriously annoying (for the most part), but The Vicious Brothers have made a visually impressive little movie here.

Five friends head to the middle of nowhere for a weekend of sex, drugs, and arguing amongst themselves (because 70% of Horror movies exist based on that premise), but the weekend is really about April preparing her family cabin for sale, while simultaneously dumping her boyfriend Kyle; because that's the emotional tie-in that makes us care about these characters. Or not.

SOUNDS LIKE IT'S GOING TO BE A GREAT WEEKEND.

While partying and fighting, the friends see a mysterious object crash into the nearby forest, so they head off to investigate, because this is a predictable Horror movie and it's in the script. They discover that the crashed object is an Alien Spacecraft, and that its pilot is on the loose. Panicking for their very lives, they head back to the cabin where they encounter said Alien, and end up shooting him dead... which really pisses off his Alien friends.

WELL, THERE GOES THAT GREAT WEEKEND THAT WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT...

From here on out, it's Dumb-ass Humans vs. Pissed-off Aliens, and it's not real hard to imagine which side is more likely to win that fight... and that side is the U.S. Government! They always seem to win every fight, don't they? Anal probing ensues.

"AYY LMAO."

We went into Extraterrestrial expecting very little, because we weren't the biggest fans of The Vicious Brothers' first directorial effort, Grave Encounters (our review.) We seem to be in the minority with that opinion, but the movie just didn't work for us. As far as Extraterrestrial goes however, it's definitely got its share of issues, but it's a much better overall effort than was Grave Encounters, and we really enjoyed a lot of it.

WE ENJOYED THAT PART THE MOST.

Let's start off by saying that Extraterrestrial has some issues, the main one being that it's an uneven effort. Half of the time, this movie wants to be funny and almost meta, and it tries really hard to be, but it never quite gets there. We're pretty sure that The Vicious Brothers played this one for self-aware laughs on purpose, at least to a point, but the writing and acting just wasn't sharp enough to make it fully work. If that was their intention to begin with, of course.

AND THAT ENDING HAD US ALL LIKE...

The way that the cliche-ridden and tongue-in-cheek story plays out (whether intentional or not) is one thing, but where the sub-par writing really hurts the movie is with its characters. None of the characters in Extraterrestrial are solid enough to make us buy into their plight, or even tolerate their personalities. For example, the asshole of the group (because there always has to be one) is so utterly shitty and annoying, that it took us about 8 seconds to pray that he would die painfully. That's how it's supposed to go with characters like that, but the rest of them weren't much better, and that is a big issue.

COULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED TO A SHITTIER GUY.

The rest of the time, Extraterrestrial is an intense stalk-and-slash flick, that worked pretty well on a few different levels. It was pretty fun and gory when it was going full tilt, and every part that involved the Aliens was entertaining on at least some level. The FX in this one were done really well, especially considering the film's smaller budget. We really loved the way that the people got sucked up into the Alien ships, and everything that happens to them once they do, was really cool as well. Visually and atmospherically, Extraterrestrial was pretty solid.

THE ALIENS OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL LOOKED FANTASTIC.

Michael Ironside playing the crazy, all-knowing, gun-toting neighbor was fun too, even if his character was a bit over-the-top, and Gil Bellows was great as the Sheriff, even though his role was not as "important" as we would have liked it to have been.These guys were the best characters in the movie, by far.

IT WAS NICE TO SEE EMILY PERKINS IN THIS ONE AS WELL, EVEN IF HER PART WAS SHORT AND NOT VERY DEEP.

The bottom line is that If the first half of Extraterrestrial had been as enjoyable as its second half, then we'd be talking about a B+ movie here instead of a C.

At least it wasn't Found Footage.

THE ALIENS ALWAYS HAVE THE LAST LAUGH!

Extraterrestrial is a decent movie, that toys with being a really good one at times. If The Vicious Brothers had played this one straight, we think it would have probably worked better overall. As it stands though, it's a flawed, cliched, and way-too-predictable effort, that also manages to be visually impressive, and pretty exciting towards the end. It's a fun, but mixed bag.

Extraterrestrial is definitely worthy of a rental, just know that it's got its share of issues.

C

Extraterrestrial is available now on VOD.

These poor girls didn't deserve an anal probe... at least not from Aliens! Zing!