Official Synopsis:
“They do not come in peace.
From The Vicious Brothers, the creators of Grave Encounters, comes a pulse-pounding encounter of the deadly kind.
Still reeling from her parents’ divorce, April (Brittany Allen, Dead Before Dawn) is dragged by her boyfriend (Freddie Stroma, Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince, Pitch Perfect), and a group of his friends back to the cabin where she spent summers as a child. Her trip down memory lane takes a dramatic and terrifying turn when a fireball descends from the sky and explodes in the nearby woods. The group venture out to the crash site and discover the remnants of a ship from another planet, along with footprints that suggest its alien occupants are still alive. They soon find themselves caught in the middle of something bigger and more terrifying than anything they could ever imagine.
Also starring Jesse Moss (Ginger Snaps), Emily Perkins (Ginger Snaps, Juno), Gil Bellows (House at the End of the Street) and Michael Ironside (X-Men: First Class, Terminator Salvation), Extraterrestrial’s mind-blowing premise is delivered with “retro shocks that straddle the worlds of Steven Spielberg and George Romero [and] nods to the conspiracy business of The X-Files” (Empire Magazine)!”
Say what you will about found footage films, you eventually find the rare one that really shines. Grave Encounters was one of those, and I was excited to see something different from the creators of that. They set out to create a genuinely terrifying alien movie. Not the type of alien you’d see in typical monster movies, but the grey alien type from the reports of real people throughout history.
It’s exactly because they go so simple with the look that makes it work. It reminds me a lot of the film Fire in the Sky, which terrified me when I was younger. That is the type of film they were going for, simple yet effective.
The characters are written to be totally campy. They poke fun at the genre of the ‘cabin in the woods’ type and really embrace it. Although they are hard to watch at times, the payoff in the end is worth sitting through some of the annoying characters. On the plus side, Michael Ironside is perfectly cast here and is a lot of fun to watch. Gil Bellows is another great choice and the B-Story with him got off to a great start. Unfortunately it seemed to just abruptly end. A more detailed exploration of the Sheriff’s story would have been great to see.
Just when you think the film is about to end, it keeps going, surprising the viewer and taking them on a ride that is literally out of this world.
Video
Extraterrestrial is presented in 1080p 2.35:1. The video looks really good here. Very bright colors with sharp detail to almost all of the scenes. There are a few scenes that are shot in a ‘found footage’ manner that have a substantially degraded quality to them, but that seems to be intentional and fortunately does not last very long.
Audio
The audio is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. This has a great track that takes full advantage of the surrounds. Levels are good for the most part, although there are a few scenes where the dialogue in the center channel was a bit too low compared to the action taking place in the surrounds.
Special Features
On this set you’re going to see:
Audio Commentary With The Vicious Brothers And Actors Brittany Allen And Melanie Papalia
The Making of Extraterrestrial
Theatrical Trailer
Although very brief at seven minutes, the Making Of gives some interesting insights on the film and the process of some of the more memorable moments.
Not without flaws, at its core Extraterrestrial is a lot of fun that requires little brain power to enjoy.
