I was pleasantly surprised by Alien Valley. I'm not sure if it was because of low expectations after being disappointed by Area 51, or if it was how the filmmakers craftily used the blueprints of my "beloved" found footage ghost hunting genre and super-imposed it on an alien flick. Or, just maybe, they did an okay job generating scares and had a unique story to tell. What a novel idea! Whatever the reason, I had a pretty good time with it.
Anyways, it's about a Ghost Adventures-esque show called "Paranormal Mysteries." They go around investigating just about anything "paranormal." But there's not a lot genuine concern amongst them about solving any actual mysteries - it's more about getting ratings than actually discovering anything. (Say what you will about for real ghost hunting shows - the folks on them are nerdy enough that it seems like at least a part of them goes into it with good intentions.) Their producer is actually a pretty big asshole about it, and is clearly most concerned about getting good shots of his attractive cast reacting to rigged scares.
This time, the "P.M." crew (about a half-dozen strong) is investigating Alien Valley - a bunch of land adjoining an Area 51-type military installation in Colorado. This area has been a hotbed of UFO sightings and especially cattle mutilations for many years, and the gang think they can get a decent show out if it. They are assigned a liaison from the parks department (to make sure they stay off of private government land... and oh, to give our camera man a romantic interest), and of course things do not go as planned.
You know early on that the gang is in trouble. Other than the fact that it's a found footage (ish) movie, you have interviews at the beginning of the film talking about the crew vanishing, as well as family members begging for information about their whereabouts. Skeptics believe this is all a big publicity stunt for the television show... I guess it's up to you to decide?
Alien Valley is not totally "found footage." I mean, it's not presented as evidence or anything like that - and clearly, the family members haven't seen this. It provides a pretty conclusive answer to what happened. But still, the stuff we watch stays pretty true to the found footage aesthetic. You get footage from the show, video diaries from the cast, and interviews with the locals. And in a nice touch, the filmmaker's give things a sort of documentary-ish feel, by throwing in bits of interviews with legit (I assume) UFO-ologists. I know the faux-doc thing has been done before, but this is the first time I've seen it done for what could be considered a "real-life" phenomena. (Like, did these guys being interviewed *know* it was for a fictional film?)
Also, there's just enough interpersonal drama amongst the crew to keep things from dragging - mostly in the form of the kind of dweeby camera guy and his romantic exploits. It's not super-compelling or well-executed, but I at least appreciated the effort. Plus, some of the characters are actually likable - normally in these things the set-up is obnoxious people yelling at each other for a half-hour. At least in Alien Valley you aren't just sitting there waiting for people to die.
And that's a good thing, because it takes a little while for the ball to get rolling. I'd say we're a good halfway through the film before you get any traditional found footage scares. Alien Valley is *kind of* a slow burn... although that assumes that you equate "slow-burn" with "takes a long time for things to happen." While Alien Valley eventually does a lot of things right, it doesn't have the emphasis on building atmosphere that I normally associate with "slow-burn" films. Just don't expect too much craziness, is what I'm saying.
The biggest issue with the film is the acting. While everyone does fine when they're in "scared/getting chased" mode, things can be more than a little wooden once you get to the more traditional "acting" parts. It doesn't derail things, but there are some wince-inducing line reads for sure.
But overall Alien Valley works. It's not a terrifically original approach to the material, but it moves at a decent pace (even though there are not a *ton* of scares) and is a good example of the found footage ghost hunting genre... despite the fact that it is about aliens.
I would recommend this film.
No comments:
Post a Comment