Altered

I'm 47 years old and I've spent as much of my life as I can remember, a fan of horror and sci-fi films. Be they silent, black and white, no budget or big budget, there are very few of them that I can't find something to like about. That said, I'll give this movie credit for good gore and creature effects but that's all. This is a case of effects over story. Truth is we live in a time where there is very little left that hasn't been seen in a horror film. Therefor for a film of any kind to really entertain it must have a good, original story. A good story can overcome poor effects and bad acting but a bad story with good acting and good effects is still a bad movie. This movie doesn't even have good acting, only good effects. So unless you can only about the gore, pass this one up.

Apparently, various crew members have posted comments and reviews on IMDb...that, ONLY, would explain the glowing responses to this really bad hunk-a-junk flick. Horrible acting...terrible script...it's all here. "Blair Witch" was indeed a one-hit wonder. This film cribs every scene; there isn't an original idea to be had in the 80 minutes of running time. It's nice to see "Blair"'s Michael Williams back in action, however. Not sure why IMDb lists the budget as $8 million - it's obviously incorrect. Skip this one - watch "Blair" again. UPDATE: One of the producers contacted me directly, to berate me for this review. That's kinda sad.

The scared rednecks Duke (Brad William Henke), Otis (Mike C. Williams) and Cody (Paul McCarthy-Boyington) hunt and capture a dangerous creature in the Nixon Farm and drive to the isolated house of their friend Wyatt (Adam Kaufman) to ask what to do with it. They recall that fifteen years ago the quartet plus Cody's brother Timmy had been kidnapped in the Nixon Farm and submitted to experiments by aliens and Timmy did not survive. Nobody in town believed in their words and Cody was accused of killing his brother. However Wyatt advises them to not kill the alien since he could be tracked by his breed and they would jeopardize the human race. But the powerful extraterrestrial being controls the mind of Wyatt's girlfriend Hope (Catherine Mangan) and brings horror and death along the gruesome night. "Altered" has a confused and boring beginning since neither the situation nor the characters are well developed by the screenplay. Further, the stupid trio of characters that open the film is non- charismatic. However, after 30 or 40 minutes running time, there is an explanation and the viewer finds that "Altered" is an original sci-fi story with touches of horror and the plot finally becomes interesting. In the end, this is the typical low-budget movie that uses few locations and special effects that works. Based on my experience, I suggest the viewer to give a chance to this film and he or she may like it. My vote is six. Title (Brazil): "Aterrorizados" ("Terrified")

I might not have been the biggest Blair Witch fan but nonetheless appreciated that effort, so I was looking forward to Altered, especially after reading the superlatives thrown around in various IMDb comments. "Unique", "intelligent", "A future cult classic" and so on... you gotta wonder where people come up with that stuff to describe such a poor effort. Because alas, Altered is a poor, weak movie that fails to engage in any and every respect. The silliness is not funny. The horror and gore is not scary. And whatever "thinking" aspect some poor fellows saw in this movie were due to severe delusions because there's certainly nothing profound or smart about this mess. OK, so we know nothing stands out. Is it at least bearable? Is the experience worthwhile in any way? Unfortunately, no. For starters, get very poor acting. It's not a stretch to say most B-movies these days feature better acting. The plot? Boring and messy. Dialogs? Many amateurs actually do better. It's really the direction that puzzles. I did not expect major improvements over Blair Witch but at least small steps forward. Instead, our director seems to have worsen over time, completely oblivious to previous experiences. If there is a major flaw in Altered, it's the main set. A major part of the plot takes place in a single location, where the main characters are confined but Sánchez has failed to give the place any personality whatsoever. Considering that in Blair Witch, the forest plays a major part and is as much a character (an antagonist, if you will) as the three students, you would think the director would realize the same thing was needed here. But no... this place has no personality whatsoever thanks to sloppy direction and no attention to details. There's nothing salvageable here. Die hard fans of "Blair Witch" are better off following Daniel Myrick. Although his output is far from being golden, it shows better structure than Sánchez and some lessons from Blair Witch are applied (unfortunately, in weak stories but still).

This weekend just passed I watched "28 Weeks Later" which was very good. After that I watched this film. I have tell you it is one of the most boring so called horror you could ever watch. The scenes were unrealistic, there was no script and no plot. The alien creature was unreal. And the fight scenes mild compared to a school yard fight. And to make it worse the guy named Cody had an uncontrollable loose filthy tongue which distracts attention from the main film. Forget about this movie; rather go and watch 28 Weeks Later. Cheers, Mesake C.

Although it would be a stretch to call it original, Altered doesn't feel as derivative or as terribly schematic as so many similar features do. Bearing some occasional resemblance to Night of the Living Dead, with a touch of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, and maybe a set up similar to John Carpenter's Vampires, director Edwardo Sanchez (who delivered the almost unforgettable Blair Witch Project) crafts a sufficiently effective creature feature, which may be silly, but doesn't feature a dull moment. For seven years Cody, Duke, Otis and Wyatt have been hunting a mysterious race of Alien hominids which dwell in the shadows outside civilization. On the night that they capture a live one for the first time. They bring it home unconscious, but soon realize that they have made a big mistake. First of all, if they kill this creature, his buddies may declare war on humanity. If they don't kill it, the thing could escape and either brainwash or kill our heroes (the only ones who are even aware of the alien's existence) Altered grabs your attention from scene one, and it maintains stability, but the climax isn't quite as solid as the rest of the film. The manner in which the last twenty minutes play out are the result of one coincidence or contrived moment following another. Of course it could have been worse. Sometimes these movie fall to pieces when trying to bring the stories to a conclusion. Some films don't even have a conclusion at all. (I won't give any names) I will say this for the climactic finale, The make-up job is sensation as we get to see the creature show us the full works, and the scene ends with a sensational wide shot of a spacecraft unlike anything I've seen since maybe Star Wars. Altered concludes on a note which hints that there could be a sequel. One may doubt that something as small as this will see a follow-up movie, but lets not forget that even Uwe Boll's movies like Bloodrayne and Alone in the Dark (which most critics put on the worst films of the decade list) have somehow managed to get funding for even worse sequels. The point being, is that the idea of and Altered 2, doesn't sound so dumb, and considering that the film is surprisingly enjoyable, it might be interesting.

Seven years after the incredible success of indie horror film The Blair Witch Project, director Eduardo Sánchez returns with this effective sci-fi chiller that proves that he still has the ability to creep out the audience. In Altered, a group of men, who were abducted by aliens when they were young, face a night of terror after they manage to capture a nasty extra-terrestrial. Sánchez, once again working on a low budget, manages to create a truly scary film with some nifty effects to boot. Using the trusty old 'man in a rubber suit' method, rather than dodgy CGI, Sanchez delivers a convincing and rather nasty little ET which is the stuff of nightmares; this is the kind of toothy critter that thinks nothing of disembowelling its victims and then playing a game of tug of war with their entrails! With a lean running time of only 84 minutes, the film never has time to get boring. The cast give good performances, the direction is solid, the creature is creepy and a guy gets a flesh eating disease and disintegrates during the course of the film. What more could you ask for?

First question: Why aliens who have the technology to travel in spaceships would walk naked and without guns or protection in a dangerous forest, specially after they had killed and abducted people in that area? Well, after that, you can imagine what comes along in this ridiculous movie. (sorry for the English mistakes, I'm from Brazil). I think maybe the screenplay was written to show a kind of animal or monster and along the production they decided to change to an alien, and they forgot to solve a lot of problems in the story. Only that could explain the huge amount of problems and holes in this horrible movie. Well, to match this stupid screenplay, there is yet terrible acting, a bad direction of photography and a amateur directing. After all the problems, at the end, nothing in explained about the aliens who walk naked and with no guns or protection in the forest. If we go to other specific problems, I could write hundreds of pages. One example: besides walking naked and with no protection, the aliens have mental power over the humans and great technology to travel in the space, what only could be possible after a great evolution, but they still have nippers and teeth of savage animals and act like those (and they don't use clothes or space suits). Completely incoherent. It isn't sci-fi, it is only a cheap and bad horror and gore movie using wrongly the concept.

(I suck at reviews but saw there were none for this yet so I figured I'd just let you all know this is definitely a must see for every sci-f1/horror fan out there.) This movie sent shivers down my spine. It was a lot like the ones I got sitting in the theater watching Blair Witch for the first time. But this was somewhat different because it's a sci f1/horror/suspense movie, and one of the best I've seen. The alien in it literally scared the s**t out of me at times. I was always on the edge of my seat waiting for it to pop out of somewhere. Or for it's friends to come looking for it. The actors were all beyond good and helped big time in sucking you into the movie. The special effects and make up were that of a big Hollywood movie. The guy that decayed through out the movie was brilliant. The ending was equally as brilliant.

I'd have to admit that the draw of this movie is director Eduardo Sanchez, who helmed the wildly popular and successful Blair Witch Project. Besides, this is an alien movie of sorts, and sounded something like Stephen King's Dreamcatchers, one of those movies that the critics hated, but I enjoyed. But nope, unfortunately I felt that for the most parts, Altered is a waste of time, so I shall keep this review short. Premises are always promising, and Altered's no different. It tells the story of a group of men who experienced strange encounters when they were younger, and as usual, others will take you as a nutcase imagining stuff. Stories about alien abduction always have to deal with probes into the orifices, so I shall not go into details, but you get the drift it's damn uncomfortable, and something you'd like to forget. What if you're given a chance for revenge? That is, you manage to successfully hunt down, and capture one alive. What will you do? For this group, it's a gleeful payback time, or so they thought. And this is where the movie begins to develop into a snoozefest, with bad, uninspiring dialogue, and even worse acting. Even if it's low budgeted, there aren't many redeeming factors, be it strength of storyline, or any help from the cast in making their characters just a tad interesting. It's the standard cardboard fare from a vanilla plain script, coupled with some cheap scare tactics employed. What's good though is the makeup. Much effort has been put into making some of the stuff which I shan't mention, because that'll spoil just the few elements of what makes this movie tolerable. Other than that, there are the usual cheap special effects, blood and gory moments which is nothing you've never seen before. Watch this only as a last resort. Compared to the other monster movie in town - Feast, this one is less fun, and takes itself too seriously. Bogged down by an uninspiring direction, you've been warned.