2025, Hugo Keijzer (feature debut) -- download
Kieijzer made a short called The Occupant: Prologue which is tied this movie much more strongly to the scifi vein. But instead of truly building on the base of that short, he decided to go for a more emotional impact, giving us a movie that is about loss and survival. They sometimes call the genre "survival horror" but usually that is when there is more than isolation and elements to be defeated. This movie is entirely about Abby fighting to survive a helicopter crash in the remote Caucasus Mountains of Georgia, the country not the state. The scifi element, which also allows a wee bit of horror to creep in, is there, but it doesn't play a big part of the movie. And if the audience reviews are to say anything, just ended up pissing off the viewers expecting a proper alien incursion movie, which wasn't helped by the absolutely infuriating AI generated images that dominate Google searches for this movie.
Abby (Ella Balinska, Charlie's Angels) and her sister are very close; they bonded strongly after the death of their mother. Now Beth has terminal cancer and Abby is desperate to find any measure to extend her sister's life, including taking a job with a Georgian uranium mining company, which could pay for private medical care. She would rather deal with a long shot than be with her sister during her final days, and the weight of the guiltis heavy.
The speculating hasn't paid off, but she found a strange obsidian like rock she believes could fund her, but then gets "the call" -- she needs to go home. She hops the company helicopter out but it runs into a flock of starlings (murmuration, once again boding ill weather) and the copter crashes, killing the pilots. She's not sure what to do next, but a walkie talkie chirps out some static and she tunes it to hear from John (Rob Delaney, Bad Monkey). He's an American pilot whose plane also crashed; he is pinned beneath some wreckage but otherwise sounds fine, in good spirits even. He knows his long-range radio is working but cannot reach it, so as hers is destroyed, Abby decides to find him instead of walking out.
The walk in the wilderness is the bulk of the movie. As a genre, I generally enjoy the survival in the harsh, cold wilds and this movie gives it in spades. But really the talking between the two is what the movie wants us to focus on, which is weird unto itself. There is notably a lack of mention of food or water, for either of the two. And then there is the rock, the strange black shiny stone that reacts to her touch. The same rocks litter the mountain sides on her journey, exhibiting strange anti-gravity effects, but really the only other-worldly effect she notices is when it rearranges to her will, into a piton assisting her getting up the mountain. Eventually she ends up in an abandoned Georgian mountain village where some Russian soldiers are patrolling. John cautions her exposing herself to them, considering the volatile nature of border patrols. But its when she discovers she's not the only one talking to "John".
Whatever "John" is, he's been manipulating people in the mountains. Can't be many but he does mention Abby was the most "fun" of those he has played with. Its time for the Russian soldier and her to trek out, but they make a fatal error crossing a large lake. The thin ice takes the soldier and Abby partially falls through. Thoroughly soaked, she is about to give up when she sees another helicopter fly over a ridge. Through delirium, she climbs the ridge and... finds a cave. She falls down its incline into a pool of water, wherein lies the body of John, the American pilot, encrusted in the black stones and quite dead.
Then the expositional explainer, the "alien". Whether its John who became one with the strange rocks or something inherent to the alien who crashed, something you would only know after seeing the "prologue" short, it wants her to join with it, with the collective nature the stones provide. Its unclear, unsatisfying (why are the rocks scattered over an entire mountain range) but it serves one purpose -- to give Abby a choice. She can join with it and be given a hallucinatory idyllic family life which isn't real, or she can fight against its offer, get out of the mountains and return for her sister's final days -- reality. She chooses the latter, of course.
I wanted to like this movie, but... it was under-baked. Sometimes the tone and visuals can allow a tense scifi and/or horror thriller to excel, but even with the stunning landscape and great performance by Balinska (is it though; hard to tell as she is the only one present most times) so much was lacking. And frustrating, especially considering the idea that she may have never actually gone for the trek, and the whole thing was an hallucination at the scene of the helicopter crash, influenced by the shiny black rock in her bag.
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