Altered: Les survivants

like sci-fi? like gore? if, like me the answer is yes then check this little gem out. its dog soldiers meets signs with a hint of the evil dead. Convincing performances from all the players and a well paced plot make altered a great film that just plane works. In recent years B movies have been plagued with bad CGI effects and I for one cant stand them. Altered on the other hand has Thomas Floutz, who was the special makeup effects artist on films like Underworld 1 and 2, X-men 3 and The Cave(and many more). So were talking top notch, old school special makeup effects, with only one or two really nice CGI shots where needed. It also has a great little appearance from James Gammon as the local sheriff. All in all its a cool movie thats nicely shot with solid performances, good direction, a well paced plot and lots of lovely gore, so if that sounds like your kinda flick then don't hesitate, rent it kick back and enjoy.

A movie with potential, and promise, but somehow fails to meet the ends. You could sum up the movie, by saying it performed best, with the quality it was given. In personal bias, I'll state the movie itself could expand, further with the ideas it had. Giving it, an average rating. Everything centered around that statistic, average acting, plot, but the concept of the enemy was what was interesting.

The holes in the plot are minor, but they still should have had depth. How did this happen? What about this? It didn't give a deep intrigue towards this, but gave the amount necessary to at least grasp it, albeit somewhat.

These are all personal thoughts, but i enjoyed the movie. A settling horror flick, around your friends, or alone, but not worth more than maybe 10 bucks.

The scared rednecks Duke (Brad William Henke), Otis (Mike C. Williams) and Cody (Paul McCarthy-Boyington) hunt and capture a dangerous creature in the Nixon Farm and drive to the isolated house of their friend Wyatt (Adam Kaufman) to ask what to do with it. They recall that fifteen years ago the quartet plus Cody's brother Timmy had been kidnapped in the Nixon Farm and submitted to experiments by aliens and Timmy did not survive. Nobody in town believed in their words and Cody was accused of killing his brother. However Wyatt advises them to not kill the alien since he could be tracked by his breed and they would jeopardize the human race. But the powerful extraterrestrial being controls the mind of Wyatt's girlfriend Hope (Catherine Mangan) and brings horror and death along the gruesome night.

"Altered" has a confused and boring beginning since neither the situation nor the characters are well developed by the screenplay. Further, the stupid trio of characters that open the film is non- charismatic. However, after 30 or 40 minutes running time, there is an explanation and the viewer finds that "Altered" is an original sci-fi story with touches of horror and the plot finally becomes interesting. In the end, this is the typical low-budget movie that uses few locations and special effects that works. Based on my experience, I suggest the viewer to give a chance to this film and he or she may like it. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Aterrorizados" ("Terrified")

7.2/10 As a huge fan of alien films, I've seen many lists and articles including this as a very underrated gory alien offering on a small budget. The director Eduardo Sánchez, who has definitive experience in crafting simplistically effective creepy films on tight funds clearly shows that talent here once again in even better fashion than Blair Witch Project. The overall story takes some time at first to develop within the group of 4 friends and their "guest". As pieces start falling together and developing it gets damn right insane and visceral and the tension gets extreme. I thought the action packed finale was spectacularly executed and satisfying and made up very well for the duller first half. The practical creature effects on the alien are top notch and very impressive for the production budget, as well as the brutally disgusting gore effects which do not let up for the entirety. The dialogue was absolutely ridiculous at times especially with the Cody character but it gave the film a certain personality and comedic aspect at times. The setting was a bit too limited as it was essentially shot in a couple rooms of a house but that's to be expected on a lower budget. The scenes where they were out in the forest at night were very ominous and I think they could've expanded the overall setting by utilizing that environment more. Overall this was a surprising alien film that shows you can do a lot with a little with the right people on board. I also recommend Sánchez's Bigfoot film "Exists" for a similarly solid story on a humble budget.

Although it would be a stretch to call it original, Altered doesn't feel as derivative or as terribly schematic as so many similar features do. Bearing some occasional resemblance to Night of the Living Dead, with a touch of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, and maybe a set up similar to John Carpenter's Vampires, director Edwardo Sanchez (who delivered the almost unforgettable Blair Witch Project) crafts a sufficiently effective creature feature, which may be silly, but doesn't feature a dull moment.

For seven years Cody, Duke, Otis and Wyatt have been hunting a mysterious race of Alien hominids which dwell in the shadows outside civilization. On the night that they capture a live one for the first time. They bring it home unconscious, but soon realize that they have made a big mistake. First of all, if they kill this creature, his buddies may declare war on humanity. If they don't kill it, the thing could escape and either brainwash or kill our heroes (the only ones who are even aware of the alien's existence)

Altered grabs your attention from scene one, and it maintains stability, but the climax isn't quite as solid as the rest of the film. The manner in which the last twenty minutes play out are the result of one coincidence or contrived moment following another. Of course it could have been worse. Sometimes these movie fall to pieces when trying to bring the stories to a conclusion. Some films don't even have a conclusion at all. (I won't give any names) I will say this for the climactic finale, The make-up job is sensation as we get to see the creature show us the full works, and the scene ends with a sensational wide shot of a spacecraft unlike anything I've seen since maybe Star Wars.

Altered concludes on a note which hints that there could be a sequel. One may doubt that something as small as this will see a follow-up movie, but lets not forget that even Uwe Boll's movies like Bloodrayne and Alone in the Dark (which most critics put on the worst films of the decade list) have somehow managed to get funding for even worse sequels. The point being, is that the idea of and Altered 2, doesn't sound so dumb, and considering that the film is surprisingly enjoyable, it might be interesting.