Altered
Directed by: Eduardo Sanchez
Written by: Jamie Nash
Starring: Adam Kaufman, Brad William Henke, Paul McCarthy-Boyington, Michael C. Williams, Catherine Mangan

I’m always up for a good horror movie, but one of the annoying things about horror is that it’s a genre favoured by low budget filmmakers hoping to get their work noticed. I think it was Sam Raimi himself who said that you can’t actually make a bad horror movie; which is to say that even bad horror movies have an audience. So basically, it’s a no-lose situation. I disagree though; I think you can lose, because the horror market is way past the saturation point right now and there’s no easy way to stand above the crowd anymore.

This is why I normally hesitate to give many low budget horror movies a chance — unless there’s someone with decent credentials involved. As it turns out, this is the only reason I wanted to see the moive Altered in the first place. Everything about this direct-to-DVD title made it look like a bland and forgettable experience, with the exception of one thing: director Eduardo Sanchez, who co-directed 1999’s smash indie hit The Blair Witch Project.

Now I know a lot of people think The Blair Witch Project was a flash in the pan, a movie that didn’t live up to the hype and only got attention from its creative marketing. Personally I thought it was a truly terrifying and gripping film, that found an ingenious way to get around its low budget limitations. However, after watching Altered I found myself wondering if The Blair Witch Project really might have been a fluke after all.

Although Altered uses no documentary-style format, and is a much more conventional horror film overall, it probably could have worked with the right approach. The movie is about a group of friends who seek revenge on an alien after their friend was abducted 15 years ago, only to have their plan for redemption go awry. While some might find alien abductions a bit cheesy, I happen to like horror movies that involve aliens. I would probably rank Signs and Fire In The Sky as two of my scariest movies of all-time. But to do it right, you have to use misdirection and play on people’s imaginations. You can’t have a guy running around in a rubber suit… and unfortunately that’s exactly what we have in Altered.

The real problem with Altered is that it starts off weak and never really recovers. Within the first 10 minutes an alien is captured and bagged in the woods somewhere and brought back to a guy’s garage, where he is chained up. Right off the bat we are just expected to accept the fact that aliens exist, they are hostile, and they are mad at these dudes… which kicks off the proceedings on a pretty surreal tone. Not to mention the fact that the main source of fear in the movie has already been reduced to a minor threat. How is this going to be scary again? It comes as no surprise when the alien manages to get loose through the stupidity of the characters, but it feels way too convenient.

At times I wondered if it was meant to be more of a comedy in the vein of Slither, but while the movie is definitely more silly than The Blair Witch Project, it’s not campy enough to be enjoyed on that level. The characters take themselves way too seriously, spouting off terrible dialogue, with the exception of the sherriff (James Gammon) who provides some brief moments of comic relief. It didn’t help that two of the stars look like distant relatives of Carson Daly and Seth Rogen… that was distracting too.

Altered unfortunately falls back on a lot of the typical crutches that low budget movies use, such as being set almost entirely in one small location (the guy’s house), and utilizing a very small cast. Plus the characters all seemed to have these contrived conflicts among themselves, which made it feel more akin to a Tarantino film than, say, a George A. Romero movie. The horrific back story of the initial abduction is also never fully revealed to us, and only mentioned briefly in dialogue, which felt like another low budget cop-out.

I will say that for all the low budget compromises being made, the production value looks pretty decent though. There are some good gore effects, and the aliens look slightly more creepy than the ones in Signs (although seeing them in full motion right in front of our face was equally laughable). The movie is well-lit and well shot, and I’m guessing it cost more to make than Blair Witch (which is kind of sad).

Overall though, I was expecting a lot more from Eduardo Sanchez. Considering this is his follow-up directorial gig and it’s taken him seven years to do it, his future as a filmmaker starting to look somewhat questionable. I really don’t disagree with the decision of Rogue Entertainment to put this stinker out straight to DVD. There are a couple tense moments, but with so many other good horror movies out right now this thing is destined to end up in bargain bins everywhere within a couple of months. — Sean

SCORE:

Recommended If You Like: Cabin Fever, Signs, The Last Broadcast

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