Another Kind

This one appeared in my AmazonPrime all of a sudden, and had a generic enough description to not put me off too much in trying it out. Sexy young people lost in the woods have an alien encounter.

The movie felt a lot like a found footage type dealy but surprisingly it wasn't, based on the camera cuts. It treaded carefully, moving at a steady pace without immediately divulging in its alien content and instead played to a more realistic set of fears of getting lost and divided, especially when one of the protagonists reveals he didn't bring a map because he knows the area well enough. Completely unsurprisingly, something happens later on to incapacitate him and thus leave the others completely lost and without a map.

All throughout we get some minor incidents involving lights and malfunctioning electronic equipment that is standard of these sorts of alien encounter movies, and a lot of character interactions which shockingly turn out to be moderately intriguing, and the characters themselves aren't overtly annoying or insufferable or unrealistic.

Ultimately, as calamities befall the group and the movie progresses, we start arriving near the end and we realize we haven't seen any actual alien-y stuff. We finally get one instance of someone being out and about when they should be unconscious, which then somehow turns into a fantasy dream sequence which doesn't quite go anywhere or hint towards anything.

The big reveal at the end was genuinely shocking and awesome, and manages to frame the entire series of events in an even more unsettling light.

But then you realize the film is basically over, and almost nothing has actually happened. We basically had a far superior movie unfolding in the background of this one, and it's only revealed to us over the course of half a minute once it's all over.

I wouldn't mind this sort of movie with that sort of ending, but when so little actually happened in the movie itself, it becomes a major letdown.

Just had to watch this because I'm hooked on survival-theme movies. Maybe I had passed it if I had noticed it was one of those movies with a "mystery" element. It's hard enough to do a decent survival movie without any extra themes and true enough, this movie might had been at least decent as a strict survival movie.

Everything starts promising enough. Two friends with their girlfriends leave a city for snow hiking in the forests. Soon enough however the mystery element comes to play and the movie fails instantly. There are several occasions where something irrational and not so subtle stuff happens. One of the guys is just constantly trying to convince the others that's not a big deal. Perhaps some hillbillies are playing pranks etc. and he succeeds every time! This is one of the major flaws in the movie and such a typical fail that it's very annoying. Nobody in their right mind would sleep comfortably and wait some new weird stuff to just happen in dark woods without giving it a second thought. Instead they would get back to their car as fast as possible even if it was only some hillbillies having fun at their expense. But no, they have to wait until parasites begin drilling into their skulls before they're convinced it's probably safer to get back home.

So why did we need the mystery element here? Probably the writer / director realized he didn't have any new ideas for a survival movie and thought he could get off the hook by adding the mystery element. Very few movies in the genre have anything new to add, but I still rather watch another unoriginal realistic movie than a stupid one that's not even funny (unlike The Core which is hilarious). If you find some guilty pleasure from survival movies, then there are much better options you might have not seen yet from The Poseidon Adventure to Open Water and 127 Hours and many more in between.

I can see why many people will dislike this movie. It's a bit slow if you're looking for action rather than atmosphere, many details are left unexplained, and what is explained comes way out of left field. But I felt the bizarre and unexplainable events only added to the creepy atmosphere of the cold wilderness. I actually found myself wishing the filmmakers had left even more to the imagination, as the underlying explanation seemed to cheapen the rest of the movie somewhat. I still found myself quite satisfied when the credits rolled, but I think a more ambiguous ending would have been a better fit and given this movie a more lasting feeling of horror.

So while not without its flaws, overall I felt it was a much more interesting movie than its current rating would suggest. It reminded me of YellowBrickRoad, another creepy and bizarre wilderness horror with widely divided opinions.

Acting was a bit poor, but a creepy atmosphere made this film watchable

Id honestly really enjoyed this film,&watched it tonight again on Hulu(&honestly also re-watching next on Hulu a Based on True Events/B.O.T.E. film called"Dark Mountain",also a shorter length film,that Id rate the same as well w/6,though wish a more of a 6.5 were possible to choose,though).

Itd been awhile since last watching the films.But,this film left me wishing that they really had a higher"Movie Budget",than just the roughly $120K,Because then they maybe could've had the chance to keep going past the ending,which even in itself,was also good!Even though it was a low budget movie,it doesn't seem like it is by having that tacky video look&quality to it.

They did a well chosen movie concept to do,along w/having some pretty good Actors,who played their character parts well,too!Its definitely like they ALL made the best of it w/what they had to work with!IMHO,they pull it off w/taking advantage of using what they can,&w/the various elements to let your mind also contribute,w/your imagination working w/the movie,per say.Rather than trying to use up the budget$$ to try"amping it up"in some way.Which Im guessing like other low budgets,whod ended up butchering their flick to where the quality pays the price making literally a"B-Minus Movie",&a badly executed movie!

Which is altogether why I also wish there were also a way I could've rated up abit w/choosing more like 6.5 Stars and wish there were more to the movie in the ending,but it was still a good ending &movie for what it is altogether...Although this is my personal opinion,&know everyones is different :)