Genres

Visitors Review

Woodyanders 2012-05-22 20:58:03

Entertaining send-up of trashy sci-fi/horror junk

A motley assortment of men and women live and work together on a baseon Mars for the Interplanetary Corporation. Things are pretty dull andunexciting until one day the crew find themselves under attack by notonly a lethal group of strangers, but also from a vicious reptilianhumanoid alien beast. Writer/director Chance Shirley relates theenjoyable story at a brisk pace, pays affectionate tongue-in-cheekhomage to endearingly tacky low-budget 60's era sci-fi schlock,maintains a winningly sharp sense of brash humor throughout (theopening black and white life on Mars documentary is a hystericallycornball hoot while an inspired running gag about censored profanityprovides a wealth of gut-busting belly laughs), and delivers a generoussprinkling of cheesy gore as well as a smidgen of yummy gratuitousfemale nudity. The enthusiastic cast attack the campy material withreal zest, with especially praiseworthy work by Mia Frost as spunkymechanic Beth, Kyle Holman as rugged take-charge cook Jackson, MichaelShelton as likable lunk Steve, Melissa Bush as uptight executive Lisa,Sylvestor Little Jr. as the easygoing Jones, Kevin Van Hyning as smarmyjerk Kevin, Lisa Mason as huffy company vice president Lori, and AmandaMyers as the lusty'n'luscious Michelle. The deliberately staticcinematography by Steve Ashlee and Chris Hilleke makes nifty use oflovably flat and crummy master shots. Eric McGinty's spirited pulsatingscore hits the stirring spot. An absolute riot.

MBunge 2012-05-22 15:11:35

Remember, brevity is the soul of wit.

This is an 86 minute, low budget feature that's at least an hour toolong. As a 20 minute film festival short with a plot to match thatlength, Interplanetary would have been pretty amusing. It's a visualhomage to the fake looking sets and costumes of bargain basement sci-ficinema combined with a satire on corporate culture. There's only onelaugh out loud gag in the whole script but the ultra-cheesy look andirreverent sensibility are delightfully incongruous and that would havebeen enough to sustain a flick that came in well under half an hour.Extending it for another hour beyond that is as painful as stretching amidget on the rack. The humor dies on the vine and the attempts to fillout the story with drama are laughable, but not in a good way.This is the tale of the wage slaves of Mars Base Two as they get caughtbetween a Martian fossil, a secret lab of evil experimentation and analien beast that apparently discovers it's a nudist as the movie goesalong. There's a bit of bare female flesh at the beginning and a bitmore of cheap-looking gore toward the end. The best members of the castcome off like they'd be good at community theater and the rest areclearly in this thing only because they know these filmmakers and willwork for Spam. There are a couple of nice shots but most ofInterplanetary is the work of people with more ambition than talent andwill only impress others of the same stripe. As a movie, this is betterthan strictly amateur efforts but remains a clear step belowprofessional standards. You'd have to call this semi-pro cinema.The friends and family of the folks who made Interplanetary probablyenjoyed watching it and I wouldn't begrudge them that. Foisting thisquality of film on the general public, however, is flatlyobjectionable. No disinterested viewer could possibly like this unlessthey were stoned and/or retarded. There are just too many lame scenesthat pound the life out of every good idea writer/director ChanceShirley poured into this motion picture. Again, at 20 minutes long andwith a reworked story that emphasized the few promising elements hereand dispensed with everything else, plenty of film festival crowdswould have applauded it. At 86 minutes, most the crowd is going to walkout on it.In the past, when mainstream movies were quite limited in the amount ofsex and blood they would show, there was at least some reason forexploitative crap like Interplanetary to exist. What's the point ofmaking something like this now? There's no market for it and no one inHollywood is ever going to look at it and think the people responsiblefor it deserve their big show business break. It's like a modern dayradio drama. If you want to produce one as a hobby, that's fine but youcan't expect people to pay money for it like legitimate entertainment.And by the way, I watched the trailers that came on the InterplanetaryDVD and they were the single worst conglomeration of worthless,unwatchable garbage I've ever seen in one place at one time. Thecombined budgets of these wretched flicks had to have been less thanthe price of a back ally handjob and they couldn't have been moreasinine if they were all written, directed and performed by donkeys. Ifflicks like those are your usual diet, you'll likely thinkInterplanetary is the greatest story ever told. You also shouldn't beallowed to vote. Unless you are a struggling, low budget filmmaker andwant to see how bad it can be when you exceed your capabilities, stayaway from this movie.