Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.0

Ejecta Blu-ray Movie Review

. . .or, what happens after those close encounters.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 18, 2015

There’s an iconic scene in Close Encounters of the Third Kind where Roy Neary (portrayed by Richard Dreyfuss) starts playing around with a pile of mashed potatoes, ultimately forming them into a scale model of a location that will become central to the unfolding plot. This whimsical meal based interlude serves as something of a symbol that certain forces are working on Roy’s addled mind at a level which he’s probably not entirely conscious of. Close Encounters of the Third Kind pretty much leaves it to any viewer’s imagination as to what exactly happens after a coterie of humans does make contact with alien beings, but Ejecta seems to suggest that the mental state of any post-close encounter human brought into contact with an alien culture is going to be the equivalent of mashed potatoes themselves. William Cassidy (Julian Richings) is just such an individual, an obviously deeply troubled guy who claims to have been an (at least initially) unwitting tool of nefarious aliens and who is now, years later, still coming to terms with what Cassidy sees as something of a “Skinner Box” experiment he’s been undergoing, with the aliens doing the examining. Ejecta is a very stylish film, and for once it’s style not necessarily attempting to hide a lack of substance. In fact if anything Ejecta suffers from too much plot, positing not just Cassidy’s back story, but also current travails with both nasty aliens and equally nasty humans. The film also attempts to work in a bit of a found footage ethos (to middling effect) as well as even more POV content courtesy of a nighttime raid involving various Black Ops type folks. It’s an overstuffed scenario to say the least, but in dribs and rabs, Ejecta actually manages to develop a nice feeling of dread and oppression.

There are several structural and even narrative ambiguities at play in Ejecta which are perhaps needlessly over labored, despite the film’s implication of how some interlocking plot machinations work. This disjointed feeling is evident from the very beginning of the film, when Cassidy is shown being interviewed by some unseen interrogator about his long history with aliens and the physical and psychological effects those interchanges have wrought in the obviously disturbed man. Intercut with these scenes are a series of “night vision” moments with a team of soldiers tracking someone or something through the night, a sequence which has the unexpected denouement of seeming to show Cassidy himself as the prey.

This nonlinear approach is only exacerbated as the film continues, with one side of the story dealing with a documentary filmmaker named Joe Sullivan (Adam Seybold) following Cassidy around and trying to get the skivvy on what makes the guy tick. The other side deals with the black ops bad guys, who ultimately include a very bad girl, one Dr. Tobin (Lisa Houle), a sort of Torturer in Chief who would probably consider things like waterboarding a veritable walk in the park. Tobin, kind of like Sullivan himself, is out to glean information from Cassidy, though she has a whole arsenal of nasty looking devices at her beck and call in order to facilitate her efforts.

The structural artifices of Ejecta are no doubt intended to keep the viewer as off kilter as Cassidy himself evidently is, but they tend to ultimately work against the film rather than toward its goal of incipient paranoia. This is especially true of the intercutting between the documentary interviews and the somewhat more aggressive “interviews” by the good (?) doctor, especially since it’s not all that clear what exactly the black ops folks are hoping to divine from torturing Cassidy to within an inch of his already fragile mental life. When an Interstellar event of sorts begins to draw the parallel storylines together, it’s perhaps too little, too late, though screenwriter Tony Burgess at least attempts to pull of some scenario sleight of hand late in the film, again to middling effect.

Ejecta never ultimately works up enough energy to deliver the goods, dramatically speaking, but it serves as a fantastic showcase for Richings, an often under appreciated character actor who has graced any number of films like X-Men: The Last Stand and Saw IV in smallish though often quite memorable roles. Here, thrust into center stage, Richings creates a surprisingly believable character, an obviously deeply addled guy who is struggling with years of dysfunction and who finds himself a pawn in a game he doesn’t completely understand. His scenes with Houle in the shadowy confines of the black ops torture chamber bristle with a visceral intensity, and Ejecta might have done better to eject the other story elements in favor of focusing on this central relationship, the place where the film finds its surest footing.

Ejecta Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Ejecta is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, in conjunction with IFC Midnight with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.00:1. Shot digitally with the Red Epic, Ejecta offers the typically sharp and smooth appearance of this medium, though detail is hampered somewhat by an often dark and inchoate series of settings, choices perhaps made intentionally to mask what was evidently a miniscule budget. As should be expected, the few relatively brightly lit sequences pop the best, with good detail and clarity and a natural looking palette. A lot of the black ops torture chamber sequences are bathed not just in an overall dusky ambience but in deep shades of blue, something that tends to keep fine detail at least partially at bay in all but the most extreme close-ups. Some of the POV shots, like the green hued "night vision" sequences, or some of the "found footage" moments that crop up later in the film, are also intentionally fairly soft and ragged looking. There are recurrent though relatively minimal compression issues, with chunky yellowish artifacts cropping up in several of the darkest moments.

Ejecta Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Ejecta's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix offers some excellent immersion in some of the busier sonic moments like the black ops forays into the woods to track down—well, whatever it is they're chasing. A lot of the rest of the film offers occasional discrete channelization for individual effects, but is otherwise fairly restrained in its surround presentation, centering dialogue without much if any directionality. There's good fidelity and everything is relayed cleanly and with smart prioritization, but the film tends to belie its small scale ambitions with a fairly rote audio presentation. For the record, there is also a standard DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track included on this Blu-ray for those without a surround setup in their home theaters.

Ejecta Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:54)

Ejecta Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Ejecta is too convoluted for its own good, careening wildly between disparate plot elements that are only haphazardly woven together as the film moves toward its endgame. The film works best in its frightening showdowns between Cassidy and Tobin, and those moments provide the most viscerally intense elements in an otherwise somewhat confusing enterprise. Richings is really unforgettable in this role, not chewing the scenery as much as mulling it over a bit before spitting it out. Technical merits are generally okay (video) to very good (audio) for those considering a purchase.