Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Stranded

There are great movies, there are good movies, there are mediocre movies, there are bad movies and there are movies that are so epically awful that you wonder why someone even considered forking over their cash to get it made in the first place.

Stranded is one of those movies.
A group of astronauts that run a mining operation on the moon are hit by a devastating meteor storm that damages their habitat beyond repair. Upon investigation they learn that a violent alien organism may have infiltrated the facility via one of the meteors, but due to the buildup of carbon dioxide the possibility of it all being a mass hallucination begins to consume the crew with paranoia.

I should have known that this was going to be a disaster of a film once I saw who directed it… Roger Christian. Yes, the same man who directed my least favorite film of all time – Battlefield Earth. If you go to IMDB and look up this talentless hack you’ll see that not one of the films he directed have received any decent positive word of mouth. His projects are universally frowned upon, save The Sender. And yet he still continues to be hired to make garbage like this.
For starters, the movie just looks absolutely bottom of the barrel. We are talking cheap cheap cheap. The outer space scenes are all made up of undetailed miniatures that look like they were purchased at a model shop and were never painted. While I do applaud the use of physical effects instead of digital ones I have to say that this is a sterling example on how not to do it effectively. The sets look like someone’s garage and outdated machinery found at a junkyard was spread around to fill out the space.

The acting is beyond abysmal, with star Christian Slater appearing to be completely disinterested in his part. I guess the mortgage was due. Co-stars Brendan Fehr (Roswell, The Forsaken), Amy Matysio and Michael Therriault are uniformly bad in their respective parts, Therriault doubly so since he also plays the possibly hallucinatory alien.
The script by Christian Piers Betley & Roger Christian recycles nearly every single science fiction/horror cliché you can possibly think of. There is nothing original at all here, and the director seems to enjoy showing off just how much he has plagiarized Alien, Aliens, The Thing and more. Sure the idea that the alien infestation (if you could even call it that) could possibly be a hallucination brought on by carbon dioxide poisoning is interesting in theory, but it is pulled off in the most hackneyed way imaginable and at times the script forgets if it’s played its hand already and given away the truth. It’s a confusing mess. And what’s worse is that the characters are written as a bunch of whiny assholes that are completely unlikable in every way. When you are just rooting for some random occurrence to take these people out just so you won’t have to hear them speak anymore you know you’ve watching an epic fail of a flick.

Laughably, the alien takes the form of one of the crewmembers (the aforementioned Therriault) after biting him on the hand in order to cut down on the money it would take to create an alien suit or some CGI creature. He’s not scary or convincing in the part (or parts since he plays two characters) and due to it the threat level it presents is a bad joke.
Everything about this movie is horrible. Nothing works, it’s unintentionally funny (but not in an amusing way), the actors don’t give a shit and the low budget works against the filmmakers at every turn. Well, it works against them whenever the downright putrid script isn’t doing it already. And to add insult to injury it’s left open for a sequel during the final moments.

Please do not watch this movie. It is a waste of your precious time and your patronage will allow Roger Christian to continue making cinematic diarrhea. If you enjoy being shat on this might be the movie for you.

0 out of 5

No comments:

Post a Comment