ALTERED

Three men wander through the woods hunting a specimen of the alien race that is now invading Earth. The three hunters manage to capture an extraterrestrial and bring it to their friend Cody's house. Otis, Wyatt, Duke, Cody, and Mike, fifteen years before the creatures invaded the planet, had been abducted by the same aliens for experiments on the human race; Mike, however, died, and now the four men want revenge by tormenting a specimen of the alien race. But when the creature manages to free itself, it will be a night of terror for the four friends. Shot in just 40 days with a medium-low budget (8 million dollars), "Altered" is the second work of Eduardo Sánchez, one of the two minds that brought to life the phenomenon film "The Blair Witch Project". After a long absence from the cinematic scene (his last appearance dates back to 2000 as a producer for "Blair Witch 2"), Sánchez returns to explore the parallel and unsettling universe hidden in the woods of American suburbs and this time does so with a nod to the fanta-horror tradition so dear to "X-files". The story told in "Altered" is indeed rich in events and symbolism that refer to the universe created by Chris Carter for his science fiction series: alien abductions, control devices implanted in the human body, extraterrestrial invasion, and green hominids. All this with a tone more suited to the horror language; hence constant suspense, use of environments and lighting designed to create tension, and ample concession to splatter violence. Despite the story potentially leading to a narrative with a wide spatial and temporal scope, screenwriter Jamie Nash has taken the path of minimalist storytelling. With a nod to Shyamalan's "Signs", the aim is to show the horror and global invasion only through the eyes of a few, limiting the broader reference to the catastrophe and being restrained in the display of special effects. The entire story is narrated and experienced by the four protagonists, plus one of their wives, who are forced to confront the monstrous alien locked in the garage, with its powers (never look directly into its eyes) and its vengeful friends who are on its trail. What begins as torture porn on an alien being soon turns into a Romero-style siege, whose common thread is the theme of revenge. The almost racist desire for revenge that drives the four men eager to avenge their friend's death, and the desire for revenge that drives the aliens to besiege the protagonist's home, moved by a "human" bond of brotherhood not unlike that of the abducted humans. Excellent special effects by Spectral Motion, already involved in "Hellboy", which creates a "handmade" alien similar to the archetype that now haunts the collective imagination and the more pretentious spaceships, nevertheless realized with dignified digital effects. Absolutely noteworthy are the gore and splatter scenes involving a grotesque "tug of war" with human entrails and a disgusting real-time decomposition. The only discernible flaw in this good fanta-horror is perhaps attributable to the "alteration" powers that some characters possess, which are self-contained and somewhat out of place in a story with a linear and unpretentious development. Worth half a point more.