Part 2 of this year's reviews of The Blair Witch Offspring focuses on the first movie that Eduardo Sanchez made after the unexpected success of The Blair Witch Project. Much like our previous offspring Lovely Molly, Altered showed at some festivals before getting picked up by a major distributor who plopped it out on DVD with little fanfare (as was the case with every other Blair Witch Offspring). While Blair Witch and Molly both relied on slowly unveiling mysterious supernatural presences, Altered rips the guts out of that concept and tells its buddies to get on their hunting gear. Strap on some goggles, this is going to be messy.
In the wilds of Deep, South South, three good ol' boys, Cody (Not John Hawkes), Duke (Not Danny McBride), and Otis (Not Real-Life Steelworker From The Deer Hunter), are hunting unusual game. Sporting modified weapons they go after something not quite animal but certainly not human, finally capturing it and bringing it to the fortified doorstep of Wyatt (Not I Ran Out Of Actors). All of them are connected by this thing, connected by the alien race it comes from, connected by a history of abduction and death. Wyatt has a particular connection to the alien, as his encounter was more drawn out than the others and left him with an organic, psychic communication device in his intestines, and despite having ripped it out years ago he still senses the presence of the aliens. Nobody quite knows what to do with the wounded alien, and the E.T.-cidal wishes of Cody, whose brother was killed by the aliens long ago, aren't helping things. Neither is the fact that the alien was able to hypnotize Wyatt's wife into nearly letting it go. Or the local sheriff (the older police captain from The Cell) showing up investigating a "hostage situation". Neither is the fact that Cody has gotten infected by an alien disease/parasite that starts eating away at his skin.
I was a bit worried about this flick before I first saw it, mostly because it was before I'd seen Lovely Molly and the only trailer I'd seen for it didn't show a single frame of real footage, leading me to believe that its distributors, Rogue Pictures, thought they had a stinker on their hands. I was delighted to find that not only is the film really good but it wasn't at all a found footage movie, showing that Eduardo Sánchez was able to make the leap to real cameras and proper shot framing and narrative structure with aplomb. The script here is credited entirely to Jamie Nash and it does a great job of showing the real weight these men have on their shoulders because of their experiences, as well as the terror of an enemy snooping on their planet to see if humans should be left alive. While this is another movie filled with crass hillbillies arguing with each other the acting and dialogue is good enough that they come across as very real people with decades of comradery between them. The effects are great, both the aliens and the copious amounts of gore (the aliens have a penchant for ripping out people's small intestines in order to attach the tracking devices). Particularly impressive is what happens to Cody, as his affliction gradually eats away his flesh during the movie and his appearance during the climax is both impressive and haunting. I'll admit that the alien design isn't anything I haven't seen before but it's very well executed for such a low-budget flick. There's a lot of great cinematography on display, most notably the entrancingly clear night sky crammed with stars, an effect people only get to see when far away from society but in the context of story means that the characters are anything but alone. If you've got a hankering for alien-based horror and a strong stomach hunt down Altered for a wild-'n'-vicious ride. You weren't planning on keeping your small intestines, were you?
(See, if I'd seen this trailer first I might have seen this flick sooner, Rogue.)
~PNK
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