Extraterrestrial - Could have been quite good (well... okayish)

I’ve watched a lot of straight-to-DVD horror movies recently – many of which I haven’t even managed to sit through all the way to the end. Don’t get me wrong... ‘Extraterrestrial’ is nothing special, but I actually managed to watch it until the end credits.  And it all started so well!  A young couple are at home together and they’re actually quite fun.  They have good chemistry and the dialogue is pretty snappy between them.  I was impressed and actually felt like they were the sort of ‘real’ couple I could root for in whatever horrors were to come.

Then their friends arrived.  I hated them instantly.  From the first time you hear their (male) friend’s voice, via an intercom, you know he’s an idiot.  He’s an idiot because he says idiotic things (all the time) and swears while he does it.  And that’s just while things are going well.  When things go a little pear-shaped, he’s even worse.

Then the group of friends go to a cabin in the woods.  It was about now my ‘cliche-alert’ radar was bleeping.  What had good characters was fast descending into your typical horror/slasher B-movie.  However, the presence of Michael Ironside went some way to redeem it.  In short – he was cool.

It’s probably not a ‘spoiler’ to say that the kids fall foul of aliens (unless you don’t quite understand what the title means!) and it all sort of falls apart.  They’re hunted by creatures who have basically mastered the power of space travel and can snatch an entire phone booth off planet Earth in the blink of an eye.  Yet, on several occasions, these monsters from the stars are thwarted by a locked wooden door.

In short, it was okay.  It had a nice ‘Matrix-esque’ element to it at one stage, which was pretty cool.  Perhaps the major problem was that I grew up through the height of the X-files and I’ve seen everything to do with aliens done before (and better!).  I supposed if you haven’t seen the classic sci-fi TV show, it may all be a little more original, but for me it was retreading old ground.

It filled an hour and a half perfectly well enough.  I just won’t watch it again.  I have all nine series of the X-files and both films on DVD.  I don’t need to see ‘Extraterrestrial’ again.

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back