Fantastic Fest ’11 Review: ‘EXTRATERRESTRIAL’

Nacho Vigalondo returns to Fantastic Fest with his followup to his 2007 film Timecrimes, Extraterrestrial. While Timecrimes catered towards the genre crowd, more specifically science fiction audiences. It was not really out of the ordinary to see that he was going to have a film dealing with some sort of alien invasion. However, you can scrap all of that because that is not the case as the film is more of a romantic comedy than a genre picture.

Julio (Julián Villagrán) wakes up after a heavy night of drinking and partying to a house and bed different from his own. He comes to find Julia (Michelle Jenner) inside the house. Unfortunately, Julia regrets the night and wants to get Julio out of the house as quickly, but as politely, as possible. That is until they both realize that something is going on outside. Their phones and the television in the living room is not giving them any signal. While they are oblivious to what is happening outside the house, they know that it is probably best to stay together. While some other characters are introduced that complicate the situation, the story stays pretty focused on the odd relationship that occurs with Julio and Julia.

Vigalondo handles the human characteristic very well as paranoia begins to settle in with some of the supplementary characters like Julia’s boyfriend, Carlos and Julia’s next door neighbor Ángel. Not much is seen of the invasion outside nor is much explained. We know as much as the characters do, which is nothing. There really isn’t a lot of genre filmmaking here with the exception that Vigalondo has directed one of the highlights of sci-fi films in the past 5 years.

Extraterrestrial falls apart in the final act as the supplemental characters diverge on different paths from Julio and Julia as their relationship really finds grounding. Their story seems settled before the end of the film. Don’t get me wrong, I think the romantic comedy aspect of the film is charming and a lot of fun at times, overall it isn’t a film that will really appeal to genre fans – which is why I’m a bit short on words. The sci-fi element in the film is only used to hold all of these characters in one interior setting. It does drive one character’s motive to somewhere that is never really fully explained but by the time this all starts happening, the audience loses interest.