WhatzUp

Altered
by Derek Neff

ALTERED

Sort of a Reservoir Dogs for the sci-fi set, Altered tells the story of three panicked friends who return to the home of a long-lost fourth friend after they've kidnapped an alien out in the woods. The alien is extremely dangerous and hostile and is only one of many pursuing them. (The four men in question were abducted by these aliens 15 years earlier, and none of them have been able to get on with their lives since.)

Like Reservoir Dogs, we never actually see the central event in question; most of the action takes place within a single confined location. Some torturing occurs, unexpected reversals abound, gasoline gets poured on someone (or something) and a whole new meaning is given to the term "gut shot." Come to think of it, the Reservoir Dogs comparisons are so numerous they couldn't be accidental. But since the situation and setting are so divergent from Tarantino's debut feature, there are still lots of tension and surprises to be had.

Altered is directed by Eduardo Sanchez who co-directed the watershed horror movie The Blair Witch Project with Daniel Myrick eight years ago. Though Altered is a straight-to-video feature and will therefore never come anywhere close to enjoying the notoriety (and revenue) of Blair Witch, I am pleased to report that it's a pretty good horror flick nonetheless.

Where The Blair Witch Project relied almost entirely on mood, intentionally muddy visuals, and spooky sounds for its chills, Altered foregoes the minimalism and goes straight for the viscera, as it were (if you've seen the movie, you know exactly what I'm talking about). The acting is decent, and the dialogue is leavened with healthy doses of humor, though I do think it was a mistake to make all of the friends a bunch of good ol' boys with names like Duke and Otis who sport mullet haircuts and say things like "dadgummit." (Also, for "friends," these guys sure don't get along very well.)

Where the movie really succeeds is in its generation of genuine suspense, its handful of unexpected plot turns and its almost Evil Dead-level of gore. It's creepy, it's nasty and it has a tart gallows-humor mentality to offset the bleakness. In short, it delivers the goods, modest though they may be.