Riya (Eiza González) wakes up in a small high-tech bunker-like structure on another planet. She's amnesic save for a handful of scattered, fragmentary memories, and seems to be suffering from trauma, at least some of it physical.
The script, by Jonni Remmler, is nestled somewhere between The Thing and Alien and a dozen other sci-fi horrors since... as filtered by hundreds of videogames. The narrative is decent, entertaining even, and the mystery is interesting - but it's not the sort of story that survives even the mildest critical approach once the revelations start piling up*. Thankfully those concerns are secondary, because Flying Lotus (rapper Steve Ellison of Kuso fame/infamy) gets to play with the genre toybox and by Cthulhu's betentacled testicles, he's clearly having a blast - and his enthusiasm is beyond contagious.
That enthusiasm, and his affection for the material, mainly show through in the aesthetics. This is a wildly experimental film that leverages a small budget in all sorts of ingenious, clever ways; Excellent practical effects mix with CGI of very variable quality, and Ellison is not afraid to go for broke with all sorts of toys and techniques: Fish-eye lenses, neck-mounted camera rigs, all sorts of cool (and sometimes gorgeous) transitions between shots. There are miniatures, composite imagery attempting to replicate the look of old sci-fi magazine covers, some beautiful props, glorious gore effects... There's one effect where the cheap nature of the CGI lets the movie down, and it's unfortunate that it renders the main menace of any physicality. But then you get a more abstract shot of it that depicts it as a bizarre, H.R. Giger-esque cross between a metroid alien and an elder god, and all is forgiven.
Even when the effects are a bit spotty, they all contribute to a very cool and coherent, if somewhat derivative visual style. It's rounded out by a bloody excellent retro synth-driven soundtrack (also by Ellison). You can tell a huge amount of time, care and thought went into the visual and aural departments, and I can't help but to love something that manages to punch so far above its weight. Good job Mr. Lotus, and good job to the cinematographer (Rchard Bluck)
The production design is really impressive, too; The outfits and exo-suits look really good (is the organic spine attached to their back a reference to Dead Space? If not, the tool Riya uses certainly is), and there are enough future-tech details to give some flavour to the world. In fact, the best character in the film (apologies, humans!) is a Japanese automated medkit that scores some pretty big laughs without puncturing the believability of the setting. Nice trick, that one.
The videogame connection seemed pretty clear to me - not just due to the amnesiac protagonist and the way the plot is delivered (all that was missing was a blood-scawled Remember Citadel!), but there were a lot of references scattered throughout - from the Mass-Effect-Inspired suits the crew wear (they even have an embroidered 7) to a final critter that's closer to Resident Evil than anything in however many movies Paul W. S. Anderson's has adapted.
The acting is very decent. Riya makes for a likeable, relatable protagonist, and Aaron Paul is enjoyably sketchy. The rest of the cast appear only in flashbacks; Iko Uwais is enjoyable as the expedition leader, and even gets a small, mostly first-person fight scene that's pretty good for a horror movie. Ellison himself cameos as another scientist who, tongue firmly in cheek, proves a hoary old horror trope true.
Yeah, I liked this one a lot.
*: The less said of the science, the better.
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