Scintilla

7.8 of 10. Not to be confused with the purely horrible Hybrid from 2007 or the at least enjoyable Super Hybrid of 2010, this is a quality film using reality-based horror built on sci-fi, war, and genetic experimentation.

While the misinformed, weak science sci-fi films still fantasize and fill in gaps of traveling massive distances through variations on frozen sleep, this eliminates the distance problem completely by avoiding space travel to or from the planet. Instead, it takes advantage of well known, everyday scientific events, modern conflicts around Russia, secret government operations, and genetic experimentation to build a surprisingly plausible story with a smooth, though a little too obvious, setup for a sequel.

Given early reviews, the non-stereotypical look of the alien probably is a little too much for status quo critics to handle. It doesn't feel or look under-budgeted. The only thing hard science fiction fans can criticize involves telepathy and telekinesis. Such, however, is often the ouch with alien sci-fi - writers going complete fantasy on alien abilities.

I grabbed this off Netflix as a random, but was pleasantly surprised.

This is a film split into two halves. The first half is quite a tense and gritty war flick. A bunch of mercenaries have to infiltrate the stronghold of a eastern European warlord. The characters are quickly defined and interesting.

The second half of the film has a definite Scifi tilt. The objective of the mercenaries is a creepy underground laboratory where the guy from the DVD cover is lurking.

The action is hard hitting and the setting is atmospheric and interesting. The makers have stayed within the budget for the special effects and haven't been lured in by cheap, distracting cgi.

I can't quite decide how I feel about the ending, but that in itself is probably a good thing.

I found this to be an enjoyable, gritty romp. I wouldn't have paid to see this at the cinema but as a Netflix movie this is way above the average on offer.

I knew nothing of this movie, hadn't even heard of it before watching, therefore I had few expectation and to be honest didn't expect to last more than 10 - 15 mins. And I almost gave up during the first act - I'm not a fan of Dirty Dozen vs The Alien type action movies. But I'm so glad I kept watching. Superb.

Something about the setting, the atmosphere and the alien just got under my skin. I found it truly disturbing - in a good way if that's possible. It unnerved me in a way big budget mainstream sci-fi / horror movies usually fail to. In my opinion it is a Prometheus on a small budget - creepy and uncomfortable but beautiful in it's simplicity.

So glad I watched - this will stay with me for weeks ... those eyes!!!

Well Done All.

This movie appeal was the large amount of layers it has.

The movie poster makes you believe it's just about a group of mercenaries hired to take down a Russian Weapon experiment in gene splicing, but I got so much more.

This possibly had a lot to do with the Depth of some of the characters who story lines got to be played out though out the movie. You don't see that in horror movies (cause you really don't need it)

The movie goes from action to horror to Sci-Fi and a few more genres as the main plot unfolds.

This was so much more than what was expected and that made it something great to watch.

A group of mercenaries are sent on a mission to get something important from an underground research facility in Eastern Europe.

Scintilla is a film that shares some common ground with last year's Frankenstein's Army. After all, it is about a group of soldiers infiltrating a grungy underground bunker and discovering strange experiments therein. But it lacks the sheer imagination of that film unfortunately. It has some interesting ideas though, but most of the best threads are never developed very much, such as the skeleton faced biker or the bubble headed underground defenders of the laboratory or even the man with the mutating arm. All of these ideas show great promise but not much is made of them. Not only that but when we do discover the nature of the Scintilla project it is a little underwhelming. So there are areas where this movie fell a little short and others where it didn't build on its own good ideas. Having said all that, it's not really a bad film either. 'Corridors underground' sci-fi/horror films are notorious for being awfully tedious, on account of the limited sets and action. Scintilla at least tries to make its limited set-up a little interesting and it never really gets boring. It doesn't really add up to anything particularly great but it's entertaining enough and does have some memorable moments, even if it ultimately doesn't make the most of its potential.