Crap movie review time here at CA towers. Today we're looking at the third film from the makers of Grave Encounters 1 &2, The Vicious Bros' Extraterrestrial, a film of intense face palming and moments of sheer idiocy that lasts far too long....Anywho, check out my review after le jump!....
The whole idea of
teens going to a cabin in the woods for a weekend has been done to
death in horror films. There are so many of these types of films from
the earliest examples like The Evil Dead, Friday 13th (ok
that was a camp) and countless imitators, the idea just got stale and
quite boring even though you'd get a small gem of a film stand out
like the Ron Jeremy horror comedy One Eyed Monster and the Norwegian
zombie flick, Dead Snow but in the U.S it became so repetitive that
it took a film actually called Cabin In The Woods to dissect and add
something fresh to the genre while spoofing it at the same time.
Throwing every conceivable monster at you in the last 30 minutes
pretty much making it impossible to do anything new with the idea.
Well two guys who go by the collective name of The Vicious Bros (not
actually bro's btw) to attempt to try something a bit different with
their film Extraterrestrial. Man did these guys fuck it up big time.
What happens when
you take the X-files, Cabin In The Woods, Slasher genre, troubled cop
cliché, survivalist in the woods cliché, asshole friend cliché,
pill addicted best friend cliché, terrible CGI and a huge dollop of
Fire In The Sky and throw it all in a blender with a fucking terrible
script, turn the power on and wait for it all to mix.....you get this
film, the single most unoriginal film ever committed to celluloid or
digital film in this case. I can understand what the Vicious bros
were attempting to do with Extraterrestrial, they wanted to avoid the
demons/zombies/killer in the woods idea and opt for an outerspace
aspect to the tired idea, but what they failed to do is a) make it
scary and b) make it original and good. Within the first 5 minutes of
the film I knew there was something off about the film. I think the
realization came when the first scene introducing us to the main cast
of youngsters starts and is almost an exact replica of the intro
scene to the main characters in Cabin In The Woods. From that point
on my expectations were so low I almost stopped watching it but due
to me trying to cram as many films into the year as possible so I
have a wider canvas in which to paint my Top 10 of the year, I
decided to persevere. 90 minutes later I wanted to track the VB's
down and slap the shit out of them.
Before I get into
everything that's completely wrong with the film i'll give you a run
down of the plot.
A group of friends
go to a cabin in the woods as it's being sold and the mother of the
main girl wants her daughter to take photos of the property for the
for sale ad. That means party time, drugs, booze and fucking are the
order of the day. Then there's an argument and an alien craft crashes
in the wood. They go check it out and return to the cabin. They
discover that they were followed by an alien and kill it with a
single shotgun blast. Apparently the ET's and the U.S gov have an
agreement, they won't kill us if we don't kill them. So the kids are
now being hunted by pissed off aliens because they killed one. Blah
blah fucking blah....
Relying heavily on
Slasher film aesthetics and set ups, Extraterrestrial could have been
a quality horror film, instead the VB's show the Aliens far too early
and instead of just in the shadows they show full on shots of them
and unfortunately these are the usual “greys”, you know the type,
the same ones that abducted Cartman and probed his anus. The whole
way through I could only think of South Park which was hugely off
putting as my concentration on the actual film drifted. They did get
something right, it's really well shot and the ending is a kick in
the dick of epic proportions but the build up is all kinds of meh.
This whole idea of backwoods alien abduction has been done before and
far more effective in films like Robert Leiberman's 1993 film Fire
In The Sky, Whitely Streiber's Communion, Eduardo Sanchez'
Altered, you could even throw in Scott Stewart's Dark Skies
from last year and Indie horror Almost Human as effective
Alien abduction horrors but Extraterrestrial just does everything
that's already been done and thus bring fuck all to the table. Had
the VB's put a twist in the tale, I think it would have been a bit
more bearable.
Extraterrestrial did
get a few things right. It's very well shot for a low budget film,
the lighting is good and switches from black, blue and red which
gives it a cool look. The casting of Gil Bellows as the town sheriff
was a good choice and he gives good on the dialogue spouting and also
throwing Michael Ironside in there as the crazy survivalist who, in a
prolonged scene of exposition explains everything you need to know
about our alien overlords while smoking a joint. Also the ending was
pretty cool but then it still recalled the X-files in what I can only
assume was a homage because if it wasn't Chris Carter should sue.
The stuff they got
completely wrong....Well ripping off so many other better films for a
start, predictable face palming dialogue is another. During one scene
the main girl says “ just face it, we're the only things in this
universe” as she said it, the alien craft crashes. At that point I
lit a cigarette and checked facebook on my phone for ten minutes. The
casting of Gil Bellows, yeah that's right he's in both good and bad
points of the film, why?...because his character is utterly
pointless. The CGI is terrible and looks like something out of a piss
poor video game cut scene from a PS2 game. Then there's the Aliens
themselves and like I pointed out, they look way too much like the
aliens from South Park as opposed to the aliens at the end of close
encounters. There's an anal probe scene too which was highly
unnecessary too.
The young cast tried
their best with the god awful script and included the loony dude from
Tucker and Dale as the asshole best friend.
If you don't know
who the Vicious bros are, check out their two FUCKING ATROCIOUS found
footage horrors, Grave Encounters 1 and 2 or don't.
So to finish this
scathing review of the terrible terrible film, Extraterrestrial could
have been a different, more effective horror film, instead it's just
a clichéd rehash of better movies made by two people who couldn't
write their way out of a paper bag. There are much better alien
abduction films out there so avoid this one like Ebola. It gets one
star because I have to rate it.....
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