Extraterrestrial
Release Date: 29 October
TBC | 106 minutes Distributor: Signature Entertainment
Competent
horror isn’t hard: darkness, barely- seen big bads, manytroughs pacing pierced with power- chord peaks. Extraterrestrial is, by this metric, competent horror; cleverly shot and creatively lit on a limited budget. But Canadian duo the Vicious Brothers have seen fit to write a script so lacking in any non- cliché dialogue that it’s almost impossible to view it as anything other than a pastiche. Which doesn’t seem to have been the plan.
The mystery gang at the centre of this cabin in the woods/ alien encounter trope- fest is drastically unlikeable. The group only slightly veers beyond archetype in the film’s grisly and ridiculous third act, which is a brief highlight before, finally, a little self- aware humour creeps in at the end. If only it’d been more knowing throughout. Alex Cox