Directed by Colin Minihan and Stuart Ortiz as ‘The Vicious Brothers', 2014's Extraterrestrial is an ambitious mix of horror and sci-fi shot on British Columbia on a modest budget, but you've got to hand it to these guys for getting the most out of what they had to work with. The movie isn't perfect, not by a long shot, but it is at least occasionally impressive.

The story basically revolves around a pretty young woman named April (Brittany Allen). She heads up to her old family cabin to get it ready for sale, her boyfriend Kyle (Freddie Stroma) along for the ride as well as his best pal, the obnoxious Seth (Jess Moss) and his girlfriend Lex (Anja Savcic). What should have been a nice weekend together soon proves to be anything but. The putter about and get used to their new surroundings but then soon find a crashed alien ship nearby… and it's pilot isn't happy. April makes short work of the alien and after that, things get back to normal, or at least as normal as they can be.

These guys aren't out of the woods yet, however. There's a man named Travis (Michael Ironside) running around causing problems. He's a little off kilter, paranoid that everyone is out to get him or shutdown his marijuana operation, and on top of that the alien that April took care of was, of course, not alone and his friends? They're not happy about what happened to their associate, no, not happy at all…

Extraterrestrial is fairly pedestrian in its execution, placing a group of good looking young adults out there alone in a cabin in the woods to let them fend for themselves against a threat. Typically that threat is serial killer or something like that, but here they've essentially replaced that type of menace with an alien foe. Outside of that? We've seen this before and it's been done with a lot more intensity and creativity than it's done with here. Add to that the fact that the script crams in some fairly ineffective and completely unnecessary bits of comedy and you wind up with a movie that is predictable and at the same time, completely erratic in terms of tone and consistency.

And that's a shame. The performances aren't super inspired or about to win any awards but they're definitely more than serviceable. Horror fans will appreciate seeing Emily Perkins (of Ginger Snaps) fame in a supporting role and Michael Ironside is always worth watching. His portrayal of the paranoid old guy with a secret to keep is the standout role in the movie and he's both fun and effective in the part. The rest of the cast are fine as well. Brittany Allen makes for a decent lead and she and Freddie Stroma have a bit of chemistry. Jess Moss is annoying, but then he's supposed to be so mission accomplished and if Anja Savcic's character doesn't have all that much to do here at least she looks great doing it.

The movie also feature some impressive visuals. CGI can and does often stick out like a sore thumb, particularly when used in low budget films, but here it complements the in-camera effects quite well, blending in reasonably seamlessly and helping to give the movie a much more epic scope than it could have had otherwise. Some intense scenes of violence and alien encounters also feature decent work in regards to the technical side of things. The movie is nicely shot and rather slick looking. Too bad there wasn't more effort put into the storytelling side of the production.

The Video:

Extraterrestrial arrives on Blu-ray framed at 2.35.1 widescreen in AVC encoded 1080p high definition. This was shot on high definition digital video so obviously there are no issues with grain or print damage. The image is crisp and clean and nicely detailed and while there is some noticeable shimmer the disc is well authored. There are no problems with heavy compression artifacts or crush and we wind up with some really nice color reproduction here though there is some obvious tinting in some scenes. Black levels are nice and shadow detail is fine as well.