Beyond the Sky Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		3.5

Beyond the Sky Blu-ray Movie Review

The Truth May or May Not Be Out There

Reviewed by Michael Reuben November 20, 2018

Beyond the Sky stands in the shadow of The X-Files, but it bravely stakes out its own territory within that well-explored terrain. The feature debut of director and co-writer Fulvio Sestito, BtS revisits many of the themes and plot elements that made the early seasons of Chris Carter's classic TV show such a tantalizing treat, reminding us of some of the Close Encounters-style yearning that helped establish the show's reputation (and which Carter has since betrayed and abused; but I digress). The film was an independent project distributed by RLJ Entertainment, which has now released it on Blu-ray and DVD.

The Mulder of BtS is Chris Norton (Ryan Carnes, a veteran of General Hospital), whose inspiration is similar to Mulder's in that, as a child, he lost a family member to a possible alien abduction. In this case, it was his mother, whom his father (Peter Stormare) insists was taken by otherworldly beings, although it's entirely possible she simply walked out one night when she could no longer abide his drunken abuse. But her disappearance was accompanied by weird electrical phenomena that has allowed Norton Sr. to insist forever after that his wife didn't leave him; she was taken.

So Chris's mission is to prove his father wrong. He's the anti-Mulder, a Scully without Scully's objectivity—and it's surely no accident that he shares a first name with Mulder's and Scully's creator. Now an adult, Chris is making a documentary intended to debunk tales of UFOs and alien abduction, and he's traveled to a convention of believers in New Mexico near Roswell and the mysterious Anasazi ruins (another X-Files artifact) to interview survivors about their wild tales. There he meets Bill Johnson (Don Stark), an organizer of the event with Native American heritage, who warns Chris to tread lightly. He also finds Emily Reed (Jordan Hinson, Higher Power), a sculptor who makes "dreamcatchers" and says she has been abducted every seven years since her seventh birthday. With her twenty-eighth birthday fast approaching, Chris seizes the opportunity, sticking close to Emily as she desperately tries to ward off the coming event with rituals and talismans. He ends up hitting a mother lode of discovery—about Emily, about UFOs and about his own past.

Festito has wisely jettisoned anything resembling the FBI politics and government conspiracies that Carter used to fill out eleven seasons (so far) of The X-Files—although there is a kind of conspiracy at play in the various layers that BtS peels back. The director also thankfully eschews the type of narrative cheats and trick reversals that have allowed Carter to keep reviving his series long past its sell-by date. (Have you heard how he got himself out of Season Ten's apocalyptic conclusion? The creators of Dallas no longer have anything to be ashamed of.) What keeps the movie interesting to watch are the committed performances of both Carnes and Hinson, the spectacular New Mexico landscapes and the inventive editing by veteran Richard Nord (The Fugitive) and newcomer Zach Scott. They cut back and forth between the documentary footage captured by Chris Norton's stalwart cameraman (Claude Duhamel) and the omniscient-camera shots of traditional filmmaking. Festito has resisted the temptation to make BtS a "found footage" film, which has become such a cliche that it's no longer entertaining except in a self-referential parody like Adam Green's Digging Up the Marrow. Festito is aiming for something more substantial, and while his budget may have limited what he is able to achieve in the film's grand finale, he makes the most of it.

The film also boasts a casting coup in getting Dee Wallace, the harried mother from E.T., to play Lucille, the jaded proprietor of an alien artifacts store. Lucille knows that many of her customers are tourists and non-believers, and she's willing to indulge their pop culture sensibilities by giving her establishment the Trek-referencing name of "Seti Alpha 5". But recognizing in Chris someone who's more than just a casual visitor, she warns him and his crew that anyone who hangs around the New Mexico desert long enough will eventually come to realize "the truth"—whatever that may be.

Beyond the Sky Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Beyond the Sky's credits indicate that it was shot on Red, and Chris Norton's trusty cameraman is carrying a Red Pro camera throughout the film, which, if nothing else, underlines just how small and lightweight professional-grade digital cameras have become. The credited cinematographer is Chris Saul (Beauty and the Least). RLJ Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray reflects all the usual virtues of digital capture, with sharply detailed images, solid blacks and an absence of analog noise or interference. Consistent with its documentary themes, the film has a palette that is gently realistic, frequently dominated by intense earth tones from the New Mexico surroundings (the Anasazi ruins are particularly impressive). In night scenes (and other moments that can't be described without spoilers), we routinely get much brighter and cooler hues cutting through the darkness and contrasting sharply with the bulk of the film's imagery. Some of these are obvious CG creations, and I doubt they'll impress today's sophisticated (and, let's face it, blasé) sci-fi audience, but the Blu-ray represents them capably.

BtS's aspect ratio is perplexing. The Blu-ray cover lists it as 1.85:1, but the actual image on disc measures exactly 2.00:1, which is one of the selectable ARs on Red cameras. It's not clear from the available listings at IMDb and Box Office Mojo whether the film was ever released theatrically, and in any case I have only seen it on Blu-ray, so that I can't comment on how it might have been formatted for projection. However, nothing in the image looks cramped or overmatted, and there's nothing to suggest that the Blu-ray's AR is anything other than the intended ratio.

RLJ remains addicted to using BD-25s wherever possible, but their authoring of the 82-minute BtS is unnecessarily stringy, with a relatively low average bitrate of 20.99 Mbps and almost seven GB of unused space. Still, the film's many scenes of conversational interaction are not as demanding as a CGI extravaganza, and the compressionist has done a capable encode.

Beyond the Sky Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

BtS has a modest but effective 5.1 track, encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. There are only a few big sequences where the sound editing is showy, but they're nicely reproduced, with a clear sense of directionality and solid dynamic range. The dialogue is intelligibly rendered and well-prioritized. The track benefits from an understated score by Matrix composer Don Davis, who knows how to underline the action without overwhelming it.

Beyond the Sky Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview with Travis Walton, Alien Abductee and Author of "Fire in the Sky" (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:10): Walton's account was made into a feature film starring D.B. Sweeney in 1993. Here, he gives a brief summary while sitting at his table at the UFO Congress. He has a cameo in BtS as himself.



• Interview with Navajo Artist at the International UFO Congress (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:52): This unidentified artist describes his UFO sighting at the age of 10.



• Introductory Trailers: The film's trailer is not included. At startup, the disc plays trailers for The Osiris Child, Prisoner X and Stranded.

Beyond the Sky Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

BtS is no masterpiece, but it's a solid achievement that is all the more surprising for generating dramatic interest from subject matter that most would have said—and I certainly believed—has been thoroughly exhausted. Sestito is someone to watch. Though light on extras and skimpy in its bitrate, RLJ's Blu-ray is a satisfying evening's viewing and, accordingly, recommended.