Extraterrestrial is a movie about a bunch of young adults and a dog partying at the young woman’s divorced parents’ cabin when they witness an explosive crash, which leads to a violent encounter. Extraterrestrial’s biggest star power is in the form of supporting actors: legendary Michael Ironside and Ally McBeal’s Gil Bellows. Extraterrestrial is 1 hour 41 minutes long and a complete waste of your time.
I want to hire a private detective to determine how this crap ended up in my queue. Extraterrestrial has some found footage elements, but not enough to hit my radar. Extraterrestrial does have the same creative team as Grave Encounters, which I loved, and Grave Encounters 2, which I hated, so I would not have kept going down that road. I love Ironside, but I don’t follow his career otherwise I would never leave the house. If I had known that Bellows was in the film before watching it, I would have turned around and kept going. I do not think that Bellows is a bad actor. I just hated Billy on Ally McBeal that much. While I enjoy alien movies, I am not so devoted to the genre that I would watch anything.
Extraterrestrial belongs to the aliens as extremely hostile, psycho killers, almost as if the young adults are in a film like Hostel, which I haven’t seen, or Deliverance horror genre. You go to an unfamiliar environment and realize that you are not going to have an awesome tourist experience, but it is actually a trap. I am not a fan of this alien horror drama. To make matters worse, Extraterrestrial shamelessly borrows elements from The X-Files, but does so in such an afterthought tagged on manner that the creators probably think of as a shocking twist, but I just thought Extraterrestrial’s twist was laughably lame and predictable. Also I have to take away more points for a belabored foreshadowing and gratuitous anal probe. Extraterrestrial is not better than that.
As if that was not enough, Extraterrestrial’s character development leans heavily on the disaster movie trope where the goal is to reunite a couple that may be splitting up and the obnoxious young adult partying character with a camera usually in found footage films. You may notice that I keep using the phrase young adult. These actors may be twenty-something, but the thirties are here and hide your birth certificate. I just wish that the characters were slightly more mature because the actors were not believable as even being in the right demographic to still think partying like that is a thing. Also I hated everyone for not being good dog people. That dog deserved better. Side note: day jobs.
If I HAD to compliment Extraterrestrial, I liked that the aliens had one specific power that complicated any feasible human challenge to their power. I always love it when a shotgun is mentioned and then appears later. It is so deliciously and comfortingly predictable. If a gun is mentioned, and it is never seen in the film, I think that the audience would feel collectively disturbed and unsettled. Another point goes to Extraterrestrial for the lead woman brandishing the shotgun. It is the most interesting thing about her. Extraterrestrial does try to gamely switch things up by making the woman, not the man, shy away from commitment and have to save her man, but not enough to make me like it.
Extraterrestrial did have one bright note. I got to multitask, clean out my inbox and actually respond to e-mails. Watch Chronicle instead.