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The movie is a blend attempt from other classic sci fi productions like Alien (1979) or Dead Space (1991) but with a way much modern look to it, the cast has well know actors like Eiza Gonzalez from F&F franchise, Aaron Paul aka Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad, but the script doesn't give them too much to work with. One aspect that shines on this movie is the visuals and that's one of the key points that sales the movie from the trailer, almost catfish, there is this unsettling atmosphere with tons of purple and blue hues scenes giving that dreamlike vibe that works with the story.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17489650/
- Platform: AppleTV+
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The main character Riya is played by Eiza Gonzalez who kaes up on a space station on a far away planet with no memory of who she is or what has happened, from that point you also feel lost and the looks of the movie kicks in hard as it blends with whats going on to the point it feels awkward and its like your brain demands context badly and fast as she explores the station. First thing she finds out are bodies of what seem to be her crew members and that's when flashbacks start to happen giving her a hint of what might had happen, why they are all dead, at the same time the ship computer keeps saying there is an unusual life force detected and I think here is when that Alien vibe kicks in.
Things start to get even more complicated when Brio, played by Aaron Paul, shows up and reports there has been a distress signal from the station and says he is there to help but Riya is not even sure who the hell she can trust even puts on doubt if she has anything to do with what went down, gives you that feeling "did I did all this?", but her memories start to come back slowly and that's when she remember their mission and that she had a fight with Adhi the expedition leader, they were on a mission to find a new place to colonize as Earth is becoming less suitable to live in.
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They do find a planet and pin name Ash, its both beautiful but at the same times feels dangerous with a kind of gloomy environment due to the ash that keeps falling like snow. There is a connection between Riya hallucination and the computer alarm "unusual life force detected" and I dont know why but its the perfect comparison how many of the Alien related movies like Prometheus will come to mind, she have all this blurred memories but its the parasites that infiltrate her brain through a head wound, this leads to a lot of psychological horror to the point of melting faces, gore scenes and Riya's true identity. As you can tell on paper might not be hard to like this movie but men does the script plays the actors dirty, in concept it has everything it needed to succeed in terms of premise, ideas, environment and key aspects to fuck with peoples brain.
I wanted to like this movie because it is the type of sci fi horror that I would watch, messing up peoples brain badly and have them hallucinate things that ain't really happening to the point of madness and death, but the movie doesn't mix all this ingredients properly and that's frustrating. The movie has pace problems mostly towards the middle part, with Riya still wondering around the station with a ton of flashbacks that dont give enough context so either they wanted to over extend the story to cover as much time with less or they just ran of ideas so it becomes a void and boring. It feels like the movie was trying to kill time until it can unleash its more creative and disturbing ideas towards the end.
Director Flying Lotus had a great vision and manage to create a very cool environment that sells the idea and generate feelings even when nobody is talking, feels lost, gloomy, there is horror in the air. Same goes for the sound effects that helps lifting up the movie during slower and draggy scenes, creating a sense of dread even when not much is going on.
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Towards the end it becomes more evident that the movie was saving the meat and potatoes as things get weird and interesting, thats when Riya's memory fully came back, its here when its reveal that she has become that unwanted creature aboard since some alien organism that was on the planet had her infected and this same organism has created a carbon copy of her that happen to be the women she sees mimicking her movements outside the station early in the movie when everything was blurry and fussy for her, if you follow my blog you can tell this is a concept that happens on Annihilation too when the alien entity creates doubles of others people.
Another cool key event, and this is what I love about psychological horror, is that the Brion, Riya though she was working with the hole time to figure out what went down was actually a product of her hallucinations the entire time and as suspected she was the one who put down everyone as the alie entity took control of her, its not mention specifically why the alien did this but my only guess is to get full control of Riya, during the final part of the movie there is the fake Brion getting his fingers into Riya's head wound, its actually the alien inside her head attempting to brake her and get full control of her, she became just a vessel.
The movie is not inventing the wheel and there are concept classic of alien related movies, even though this time there is not a big alien trying to kill them all, there is a parasite trying to control them and probably spread to other planet, but mostly as a survivor reflect and not with a specific target, just like any other parasite in nature, without reasoning just that wild instinct.
I would have rather prefer see Riya flying out the planet still infected and that would open the door for a sequel but instead they decided to do the opposite, Riya gets the alien parasite out of her body with the help of the station medical equipment and end up burning down the entire station to kill any remains of the parasite. I really wanted to like the movie to the point of saying its a great watch but the truth its not, but I'm also aware this could be a 50/50 for anyone else because its not as bad to the point I had to stop it, even on RTT critics gave it a 7/10 but then the audience smash it with a 5. The most problematic thing about the movie is its pace, how draggy it feels during the times Riya didn't remember sht of what had happen and then how long it takes for the movie to push that dopamine rush with some action scenes, a remake or another movie with the same ideas would be nice but this are just my own assumptions, I would not recommend it unless you just want to kill some time before you move into something else, so no.
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