5.6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
A group of friends on a weekend trip to a cabin in the woods find themselves terrorized by alien visitors.
Starring: Freddie Stroma, Melanie Papalia, Jesse Moss (II), Emily Perkins, Michael IronsideHorror | 100% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
English, English SDH, Spanish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 2.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 2.0 | |
Overall | 2.0 |
Someone’s trying to phone home (or at least the police) all right, but it’s not an adorable little alien, as Extraterrestrial offers the requisite pre-credits tease involving a hapless and apparently lone female. In a largely abandoned stretch of a rural two lane highway a woman bursts out of the forest looking disheveled and distraught. A general store and gas station are still ostensibly open, at least as judged by its buzzing and flickering neon sign, but when the woman tries to get inside, she finds the door locked and the worker inside not especially welcoming, apparently oblivious to how needy the frantic woman is. How retro is this little backwater? Well, there’s a phone booth next to the establishment, which is where the panicked woman runs to next. She’s in the middle of a frantic 911 call when that old science fiction bugaboo—the flashing light from above—intrudes, and then suddenly both the woman and the phone booth are nowhere to be seen. The aging hippie store worker ventures outside to see what the fuss is all about, which is when the phone booth at least comes crashing back down to earth. It’s a wonderfully frenetic and slightly funny opening to what turns out to be a pretty tired trek (star or otherwise) down familiar roads that include both a cabin in the woods and alien interlopers. However, for anyone who’s ever wondered exactly how aliens accomplish those famous anal probes (and you know who you are), stay tuned—Extraterrestrial may offer some interest that’s up your particular alley (so to speak).
Extraterrestrial is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Shot digitally with the Red Epic (at least most of the time—more about that in a moment), Extraterrestrial looks commendably sharp and well detailed throughout the bulk of its opening act, when the kids are tooling about in the woods in bright, sunlit environments. Colors are bold and accurate looking, as well as vividly saturated. Detail and fine detail are exemplary virtually every step of the way. There's a decided downturn once things get to the darker second half of the film, a downturn that is exacerbated by a kind of "found footage" approach with the kids using a minicam or other things like cell phone video to capture various moments. These have either been sourced from actual lo-fi elements or post-processed to look that way, for a lot of these are overrun with pixellation issues, noise, macroblocking, banding and general fuzziness (see screenshot 12). Even the native HD imagery tends to lack much in the way of shadow detail in some of the darkest scenes, and fine detail is somewhat obliterated by the use of heavy red and/or blue filters during some of the abduction sequences (the underside of the alien craft glows red and then blue at key moments, bathing scenes in those colors).
Extraterrestrial's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 provides near constant immersion, especially in the second half of the film once the alien angle gets exploited more fully. Ambient environmental sounds are near constant in the woods and are well placed throughout the surrounds, developing a sense of aural claustrophobia at times. Good bursts of LFE provoke the expected startle responses, but a somewhat busy mix can occasionally bury dialogue in the noisiest moments. That said, the vast majority of spoken moments come through cleanly and clearly with no problems whatsoever. Fidelity is top notch and dynamic range extremely wide on this problem free track.
Extraterrestrial could have used some of The Cabin in the Woods' pitch black humor, or at least something closer to that film's approach. There are stabs at a darker comedic subtext here, but they never really take hold, and instead the film is content to maraud through a series of horror (and science fiction) film clichés, never delivering much in the way of surprise or, ultimately, interest. Performances are good and the film is technically quite accomplished. The Vicious Brothers are obviously talented filmmakers, but they might want to reach out to other screenplay writers the next time. Technical merits are generally very good to excellent for those considering a purchase.
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