Occupation Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

Occupation Blu-ray Movie Review

Friday Night Lights.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman September 26, 2018

Well, at least this time the Australian Apocalypse is not nuclear in nature. There’s been an almost comical list of films through the past several decades that have dealt with the End of the World, Down Under style, beginning way back in 1959 with On the Beach, a film which posited a group of international survivors waiting for a lethal atomic cloud to waft its way to Australia, and a film which was “Australian” probably more in terms of locale than with regard to any inherent ethos. Several other subsequent apocalyptically minded films might strike some as more “authentically” Australian, including Mad Max, Tank Girl, The Rover, and These Final Hours, though, as alluded to above, the “threat” in those pictures was either an impending nuclear disaster or the aftermath of just such a calamity. Occupation offers a rural Australian community which for reasons which are never really adequately explained becomes the focal point for an alien invasion, with a bunch of plucky survivors hightailing it to the nearby woods to plot their defense strategy. This is a film that virtually revels in clichés, but for those who like things that go boom, Occupation offers a lot of explosions, in a perhaps vain attempt to distract from a screenplay that seems content to simply click through a list of genre tropes.

As with many films that follow the same general outlines as Occupation, the first act of the story is given over largely toward introductions, some of which provide little hints about character back stories that will of course ultimately come into play later down the line once the nasty (once again kind of reptilian or insectoid) aliens have come to visit. Highway worker Matt (Dan Ewing) kind of goes AWOL from his job in order to prepare for his real love, soccer, a sport which seems to function for Matt’s rural Australian community in much the way (American) football did for the town in Friday Night Lights. And in fact there’s another kind of “Friday night lights” that set the plot into motion, when during the soccer game weird emanations are seen from above the nearby mountains, emanations that turn out to be the glow from invading spacecraft.

By that point, the film has brought together a whole host of characters at the game. There’s Matt’s soccer nemesis Jackson (Charles Terrier), who has just found out his girlfriend Vanessa (Rhiannon Fish). Tourist Peter (Temuera Morrison) is visiting with his family, which includes vlogging daughter Bella (Izzy Stevens), who meets cute with local artist (and potential scam artist) Dennis (Zachary Garred). A number of other supporting players enter the fray, including Matt's girlfriend Amelia (Stephanie Jacobsen), all of whom magically manage to evade the carnage when the aliens kind of weirdly decide to bomb the soccer field, with the gaggle of survivors ultimately holing up in the woods outside of town.

In some ways, Occupation struck me as somewhat similar to indie efforts featuring Aussies on the run from even other kinds of threats like zombies in small scale films like Plague, where the interrelationships between the survivors are mined for putative drama, while the threat often remains at least somewhat distant. But Occupation also kind of wants to be a monster film, with marauding alien soldiers traipsing through sylvan glades with weapons drawn. All is not as it seems, though, and the film spends a bit of time detailing the aliens’ motives before giving in to its more feral instincts and going for the jugular in a “rah rah” finale. The film was obviously shot on a shoestring (at least for this kind of science fiction “spectacle”), and so relies on a surplus of practical effects like things blowing up. In that regard, it fulfils its minimal ambitions with a modicum of efficiency.

Occupation Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Occupation is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Once again technical data on the shoot is in short supply online, but I tracked down a couple of incidental comments that suggest at least part of the film was captured with Varicam models. The film has relatively few CGI effects, with most of those occurring fairly early and consigned to darker scenes where their softness doesn't really distract very much. The practical effects in the film, made up largely of lots (as in lots) of explosions, offer moments of energy even if many of them play out in relative darkness as well. In one of those aforementioned allusions I found in trying to research some of the technical specs on the film, cinematographer Tony O'Loughlan mentions the Varicam's nice ability to capture dark or dimly lit scenes, and there is above average shadow throughout the presentation, even in some of the shrouded forest scenes. Detail levels remain reasonably high throughout, though there's little here that is going to totally move devoted videophiles into the "wow" category. The palette is natural looking and the film is refreshingly free of tons of grading, and there are no issues with compression anomalies.

Occupation Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Occupation's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 traffics in a number of sonic clichés that should be familiar to science fiction fans, and alien invasion movies in particular, including huge washes of LFE that resonate ominously from the subwoofer (sometimes seemingly for no real reason), as well as propulsive bursts of energy from those aforementioned ubiquitous explosions. The film tends to be fairly talky a lot of the time, and as such surround activity is frequently limited to ambient environmental effects, which are actually in fair abundance in the many outdoor sequences. All elements including dialogue, effects and score are mixed effectively with good prioritization, and there are no issues with regard to damage, distortion or dropouts.

Occupation Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

While there are "Special Features" advertised on the Main Menu of this disc, those turn out to be trailers for other Lionsgate releases, which I've never considered a "scorable" bonus feature.

Occupation Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Occupation may suffice for some who want a movie with lots of sound and fury signifying — well, not much, frankly. There's just a rote feeling to a lot of this enterprise, and even the aliens come off as guys in rubber suits, never really seeming to pose that much of a threat. And why did this particular invasion start here? Technical merits are generally solid for those considering a purchase.