The Gracefield Incident

Good idea poorly executed. It's never a good sign when the writer, director and lead actor are all the same person.

Yet another found footage/group of friends in an isolated cabin beset by aliens movie; this time trying to justify everything being filmed by, believe it or not, having one of the characters insert a camera into a fake eye which, inexplicably includes a red recording light shining out of the lens ala the Terminator (the record light, even in micro cameras, is NOT in front of the lens and we won't even talk about the potentials for tissue irritation from inserting a home made fake eye - with red yarn for veins - into a soft tissue socket). Oh yes, and the aliens also make everyone's phone magically record for no reason - they must want to make sure they leave some proof of their visitation behind. But the upshot is that it wastes its thin premise with too much running around in the woods yelling about how they shouldn't be running around in the woods yelling; with three male actors whose deficiencies as thespians become more and more apparent the more agitated their characters get; repetitious and clunky dialogue (of the obvious and overt type - characters saying aloud what their responses are or the main guy constantly reiterating "I'm not losing anyone else" because, see, his wife lost their unborn baby in the same accident he lost his eye - which in Screenwriting for Dummies fashion had to immediately follow him saying something like "I'm just happy the baby will be healthy"); and last, but not least, all of the inconsistent alien behavior and random powers and attributes as if they spring from the collected history of ALL movie aliens and NOT a specific species or technologically developed society (and this includes a spaceship design inspired (or just poorly copied from) Close Encounters. I wish filmmakers would think these things through with intelligence and creativity instead of throwing everything against the wall and settling for anything that sticks. I appreciate the constraints of low budget film-making but, in the end, there's still no excuse for stupid.

To start, I'm not an educated film critic. I watch movies for entertainment value, mostly. I watched The Gracefield Incident to be entertained and I was.

When others say this is the worst movie/acting/soundtrack ever, I don't think they've seen: All Hallows Eve: October 30th, The Yearly Harvest, Chameleon Shadow, or, 666: The Beast, just to name a few. Watch those and The Gracefield Incident will move to a 10 star film.

A shame that the acting was so wooden (particularly from lead role Mathieu Ratthe) and all narrative was so over explained and needlessly dramatic (even in non dramatic moments). Because there were some good scary moments. And at no point did it make me want to turn off. But the need for the main character to explain everything in shouty monotone, particularly toward the end, and to jump to conclusions with no seeming explanation did get a little tiring. Completely didn't care about any of them. Except for the dog. Who no one seemed to care about at all. Poor dog. Best actor of the lot.

The characters are so stupid I genuinely wanted to cry and punch my own teeth out.