Sci-fi/Horror Round-Up, pt 2: Post-Witch

Our modern understanding of viral marketing exists largely because of two guys in 1999 who were trying to advertise their $100,000 horror movie on almost no budget. Thanks to their creative approaches to internet advertising, The Blair Witch Project went on to set the record (at the time) for highest-grossing independent film. Writer/Directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick were touted at the future of the horror genre, and had their pick of a multitude of high-budget studio projects. Instead they decided to produce a Blair Witch sequel that bombed, and spent years developing a comedy entitled Heart of Love that was eventually dropped by the studio before production could begin. What are they up to now? The same thing they started out doing: making independent sci-fi/horror movies.

The Objective
Daniel Myrick has directed a number of interesting genre movies in recent years, but The Objective stands apart from the rest. CIA operative Benjamin Keynes is given control over a small group of elite US soldiers in late-2001 Afghanistan. Officially, they have been tasked with seeking out a respected local religious leader and securing a statement of support for the US military's campaign against the Taliban. But Keynes seems to be seeking something else. He keeps taking measurements with some strange-looking equipment, and doesn't seem surprised when they cannot locate their target. They travel further into the desert, and strange things begin to happen. There's a firefight with a group of Taliban rebels, but no bodies or blood left over afterwards. They hear the sound and feel the wind of a helicopter directly overhead, but nothing is there. Their communications stop working. And then they start seeing strange lights.

The Objective is not interested in handing out easy explanations. We never get a real answer about what is happening, just some hints at what might be happening. And there's a lingering sense of danger and dread that plays over every scene. The Afghan desert is presented as an impossibly big, foreboding wasteland from which there is no easy escape or rescue. There is plenty of death, but none of it is predictable. The characters are not cardboard cutouts, and act like professionally-trained soldiers. There is order, even when it becomes clear that they may not make it out of the desert alive. The uniformly-good cast is mostly unknowns, with the only kinda-recognizable face being Blair Witch's Michael C. Williams as one of the soldiers.

But like so many genre movies, The Objective doesn't know how to end. The last five minutes are a disappointment, and throw an additional few confusing twists into a movie that already had a lot of unanswered questions. But up until then, it was a rich, engrossing sci-fi movie that benefits greatly from its setting and atmosphere.

[possibly NSFW language near the end of the trailer, so wear headphones if you have nosy co-workers]



Alien Raiders
Let's establish this right away: Alien Raiders is a terrible, terrible title. Alien Raiders is what you call a movie showing at 2 a.m. on the Sci-Fi (sorry, I mean SyFy) Channel starring David Keith. The working title for this movie was Supermarket, which is not a great title by any means, but at least makes more sense for this movie than Alien Raiders. Whoever chose the title Alien Raiders is an idiot, and unfairly cost this movie a lot of viewers that may have actually given some consideration to watching a movie called Supermarket. OK, I've said my peace.

The Daniel Myrick-produced Alien Raiders is a skillfully made sci-fi movie that manages to merge a dark hostage drama with John Carpenter's The Thing. As the movie opens, a van pulls up to a small town grocery store at night. A group of masked, armed men (and one woman, but her gender is not essential to the plot) enter the store and start shooting customers, seemingly indiscriminate in their bloodshed. But there is something else going on. The assailants are rounding people up, and having a bug-eyed junkie named Spooky stare them in the eyes. Spooky is somehow screening people for...something. He detects something in a crying middle-aged woman, declares "She's one," and the woman is promptly shot in the head. An off-duty cop incites a shoot-out, and Spooky is killed. The store is locked down, everyone that Spooky had cleared are allowed to exit, and everyone else is rounded up in the back. The police arrive outside, and a stand-off begins.

As the movie progresses, we start to understand what is happening. There is an "infection," and no one is allowed to leave until they've been cleared. With Spooky dead, the only easy way to detect an infected person is not going to be fun for those who are tested. The nature of this infection is hinted at, and revealed slowly throughout the film. There's some great storytelling tricks used here, with the police outside viewing some home video footage they've found in the van, juxtaposed with what the hostage takers are telling the surviving grocery employees and patrons. It becomes clear that the hostage takers believe they are doing good, but there's always the threat that they are willing to cause unnecessary deaths to achieve their goal.

This is not a movie about character, so not a lot of development goes into that area. There are a few familiar-looking faces in the cast (including 24's Carlos Bernard), and the actors do a good job of at least giving their characters each a distinctive "feel," since the story flies by too quickly to give them a "depth." The film moves briskly, and at 85 minutes does not overstay its welcome. It starts with an interesting idea, executes it, and ends. There's a last-minute twist that's predictable, but it doesn't detract too much from the overall enjoyment. Despite costing less than a million dollars to make, the film never looks cheap. It's a kinetic, thoroughly entertaining B-movie that is unjustly hampered by a terrible title.



Altered
I have praised Eduardo Sanchez's Altered before, so I will not repeat myself here, save to say that it is one of the best examples of independent sci-fi/horror to come out of this decade. The more times I watch it, the more I find to love about it. It's a great combination of small cast, small set, and a plot that presents an impossible situation for the characters. Unlike Myrick, Altered is the only film that Sanchez has completed since Blair Witch. And he knocks it out of the park.

Sci-fi/Horror Round-Up, pt 1: Introduction

I don't even attempt to hide the fact that I love science fiction and horror movies, even the terrible ones. And by "terrible ones," I mean "most science fiction and horror movies." The two genres are a cesspool of terrible filmmaking, in part because they are the starting ground for many talentless would-be filmmakers. It's easy for directors to start out in sci-fi/horror, because the genres themselves are the attraction to the audience. There's no need for recognizable actors or a coherent script. Just grab some women willing to get topless, a bucket of corn syrup, some red food coloring, and a piece of raw chicken with some rubber hose tentacles stapled on. There, you now have the makings for a sci-fi horror movie. And believe me, lots of people go this route in an attempt to build a career in the movie business.

But what makes these genres so artistically appalling is what can also make them great. Science fiction and horror give a free pass to the filmmakers to do whatever the Hell they want. It's a playground of wild invention and ambition. It exposes a filmmaker's raw talent, or lack thereof. Don't believe me? James Cameron wrote and directed the highest grossing movie in history. His first film was Piranha 2: The Spawning. Yes, killer fish that fly. Peter Jackson started with Bad Taste. Roger Corman is infamous for producing some of the worst sci-fi/horror schlock to ever touch celluloid. His terrible films are also famous for launching the careers of Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, John Sayles, Joe Dante, Jack Nicholson, Johnathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd, Peter Bogdanovich, and Ron Howard's directing career. So suck on that, all other genres!

There is a ton of crap to wade through, but it's always an awarding experience to discover that 1-in-1000 movie that actually manages to have new ideas, or a talented director putting a fresh spin on an old one. It feels special to see a natural filmmaker in their larval stage, struggling to make something original and entertaining with a budget that wouldn't fund a 30-second tampon commercial.

Maybe it has something to do with 9/11 (because if anything changed between 2001 and 2009, it is legally required that the change be attributed to 9/11), but the terrible sci-fi/horror drought of the 90's ("Let's see how many Scream knock-offs we can release in a single year!") gave way to a surprisingly large number of original, well-made movies. The mainstream theatrical releases were still mostly crap, with only a few exceptions (The Descent, Grindhouse, the grossly-underrated Silent Hill). And one of horror's biggest theatrical success stories, The Ring, probably did more harm than good with the number of terrible remakes it inspired. But the indie world has been grinding out respectable films at a steady pace throughout the decade. Not since the 70's has indie sci-fi/horror been this good.

So over the next few posts, I will be commenting on some of these overlooked films. I imagine several of them will have dedicated cult following within the next few years, and some may even eventually be looked back on as landmark moments in the genre (Hyperbole? Never heard of it.)