ALTERED. From the co-creator of “Blair Witch Project”

Altered (2006) bears some resemblance to Warning Sign (1980) by Greydon Clark and Dreamcatcher (2003) by Lawrence Kasdan, but it has a much more interesting premise.

Three men – Cody, Duke, and Otis – set out under the cover of night to hunt in the forest. They are not hunting game, but a visitor from another planet. Fifteen years earlier, the same alien race abducted the hunters and two other people, including Cody’s brother, who was never found. Driven by a thirst for revenge, the men eventually capture the alien, restrain it, and take it to the home of Wyatt, who was also a victim of abduction and experiments fifteen years ago, and now lives in isolation, tormented by post-traumatic stress and paranoia. When Cody, Duke, and Otis arrive at Wyatt’s property with the captured alien, Wyatt warns them that the alien’s death will bring the wrath of its species and the total annihilation of humanity. To make matters worse, the alien also has powerful telepathic abilities; when the extraterrestrial prisoner manages to escape captivity, chaos ensues.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez was one of the loudest films of the turn of the century. Made by debutants for a few tens of thousands of dollars, the horror movie grossed nearly a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide, contributed to two sequels, books, comics, and video games, and revived the found footage aesthetic. The Blair Witch Project was not a masterpiece of cinema, but a true marketing masterpiece. Before it was revealed that the story of three filmmakers disappearing in the forests of Maryland was a complete hoax, viewers were allegedly fainting from fear during screenings because they were convincingly led to believe that what they saw on the screen was a record of real events.

Myrick and Sánchez weren’t able to turn their debut success into major careers in the film industry. Suffice to say, both waited a long time to make their next independent films. Sánchez was the first to succeed: in 2006, he made Altered based on a script by Jamie Nash. Initially, it was meant to be a horror-comedy in the style of Troma Studios and the Evil Dead series, about two simpletons who capture an alien, but the filmmakers rewrote the script (originally titled Probed) to satisfy the producers. “We worked on the story for a year or two before his [Sánchez’s] partners at Haxan Studios checked it out and decided they wanted to make a movie based on it,” Nash recalled. The test screenings of Altered didn’t go well, so the producers decided to release the film straight to video in the U.S., bypassing theatrical distribution. This was a failure for the filmmakers.

This is a low-budget production shot with minimal resources: the action takes place in a few locations, six characters appear on screen, and instead of CGI, practical effects and costumes were used (the alien is a stuntman in a rubber suit). Sánchez doesn’t bother with subtleties or exposition, the viewer is immediately thrown into the middle of the action, which revolves around reversing the alien abduction story: here, the alien is the one abducted, and its captors are humans. This is the only interesting aspect of the film, which never pretends to be anything more than mindless B-movie entertainment. There are a few disturbing scenes and a lot of tension; on the other hand, there’s also poor acting and absurdities. Altered is the kind of “work” that airs on satellite on a Saturday night. If sleep hasn’t come yet, there’s a six-pack in the fridge, and there’s nothing better on other channels – you might as well watch it.