I was pleasantly surprised by Aberration. I generally like to go into movies with an open mind, but you hear "killer lizard movie" and adjust your expectations accordingly. But I dug it - it's a pretty small-feeling film (small cast, not a lot of locations... even small monsters actually), but it wisely invests in building interesting characters as well as creature feature action.
It's about a young woman named Amy (Pamela Gidley) who has just moved into her family's small cabiny-house in an isolated, quiet town. (I was guessing somewhere in Alaska, but I don't think it's ever mentioned specifically. Maybe northern Minnesota, as one guy has on a University of Minnesota shirt. Regardless, it's snowy and very cold.) It's clear that she's trying to escape from her past - it's not revealed what she's running from until the third act, but whatever happened she has a fanny-pack full of cash with her. (It's not a shocking reveal, but the Netflix synopsis spoils it.) Unfortunately, once she gets to the house it appears as though she has a pest problem that her cat Frankie cannot control. She runs to the general store to pick up some mouse traps, and meets townie/field biologist Marshall (Simon Bossell). He's small town charming and a little bit weird, but when Amy's car won't start she accepts his offer of a ride home. When Marshall hears about her pest problem, he offers to help. When it becomes clear that Amy has more than a mouse problem (if her disemboweled kitty is any indication), Marshall uses his convenient biological science expertise to help her get rid of her pests, which turn out to be these guys:
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| Awwwwww.... |
I actually think they are kind of cute - there's a little Hiccup from How To Train Your Dragon in there. But these guys aren't friendly little scamps - they are iguana-sized mutant killing machines that spit poison, have razor sharp teeth, and like to kill people. They also have a tendency to bore into your body and eat you from the inside! Amy and Marshall will have to not only fight these aberrations but also the elements if they want to survive.
Aberration is kind of an older style monster movie, where there is very little monster action in the first half hour. You maybe get the occasional lizard-eye-view of things, or hear a creepy little whooshing noise as something unknown runs away, but things stay pretty low key for a while. And oddly enough, it's kind of refreshing. You get to know the characters pretty well, and Gidley and Bossell have decent chemistry for what amounts to an odd couple pairing. Which is good, since it's pretty much just them and lizards for the rest of the movie. They are both likable and feel relatively realistic - which is cool, because what I liked about this movie was that it never really relied on a sense of the fantastic for its thrills. Most of what you get is pretty realistic. (Besides some junk science that you just have to roll with. A bunch of lizards in a town during a cold-ass winter? But even that is kind of explained - they haven't adapted to the cold yet, which is why they burrow into living things! Eww!)
I think a lot of people probably have some sort of personal frame of reference when it comes to lizards - be it seeing them in a zoo or a pet store or whatever. More so than, say, a great white shark or a Sasquatch. What I'm saying is that Aberration is kind of cool in that it takes something relatively common and makes it deadly. But not super deadly - they are actually pretty easy to take out if you can catch them - but it kind of amounts to a numbers game. While lizards may *sound* like a kind of lame monster, the fact is they are unique. I don't know if I've ever seen a horror movie monster that operates quite like these guys, so it was kind of fun.
AND - they are practical! I love little non-CGI puppets, which these lizards are for nearly the whole show. This is a post Jurassic Park world, but at this stage of the game I'd imagine it was still cheaper to go with physical creations rather than CGI. And it totally works in the movie's favor. I miss those days. (Awesomely, the lizards sort of communicate like the raptors in Jurassic Park.)
The gore/horror violence actually ends up being a bit stronger than you would think given the kind of slow start. They sort of wait until the third act for anything too gruesome. While the gore effects are probably not worth the wait on their own, they are a nice little icing on the cake.
To be honest, there isn't an awful lot of tension here - it's more of an action type monster movie than something that will make you sit on the edge of your seat. And even the action business won't get your heart racing or anything. Aberration is not without it's fair share of stupid stuff - they really like blowing up houses, and those critters can get into the darnedest places. But it's just plain fun, with likable characters and unique (if not entirely scary) monsters. If you're not in a super discerning mood where you want to pick something apart, and want a little nostalgic feeling monster flick (this is the kind of stuff I grew up with, at least):
I would recommend this film.
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