A few years ago, whilst working freelance for a magazine called FilmInk, I was called upon to interview the horror writing/directing team, The Vicious Brothers –  FilmInk interview

During our discussion they mentioned they were working on a new horror movie about aliens, so when Extraterrestrial was released, I was eager to see it, despite the various negative reviews I had read.

The plot line basically concerns itself with group of young adults on a weekend trip to a cabin in the woods who run into a little alien trouble. It stars the little known actress Brittany Allen and Freddie Stroma (that cocky love interest of Hermione’s in Harry Potter’s Half blood Prince) as the main couple in peril. It also stars actors Gil Bellows and Micheal Ironside as the slowly-believeing-those-kids and older-stoner roles respectively. It also features Vicious Brothers favourite Sean Rogerson of Grave Encounters fame.

The Vicious Brothers have previously proved their ruthlessness with characters in Grave Encounters and followed it up by showing their inventiveness with the sequel to that film. Here they show both those characteristics in the one film. This runs the gamut of genres and emotions, it has shades of talky and ponderous, knowing and funny, creepy and intriguing, follows the sic fi tropes and the horror tropes with similar panache as ‘Cabin in the Woods’; and like that film also features a killer ending.

The ending of this film is key, until then I was moderately happy with the film and pleased to put it in my ‘enjoyable but nothing too special’ brain file.. but when that ending began to unfold I gladly included it in my ‘horrors to recommend’ file.

Every thing about the last half hour was perfectly pitched, the horror was butt clenching (literally!), the sci fi was austere and haunting, the music hipster cool interrupted by a shocking game-changer.

The effects were very good especially considering the low budget, the actors believable, and some of the cinematography was just sublime. Was it scary? not really no, but it was disturbing and had some good jumps, the small moments of violence were unexpected and raw.

I liked this a lot in the end, it may not be perfect but any film that makes me want to rewind and watch again is something worth getting happy about in my book!

7.75/10