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Its Not Strange Love, It’s “Alien Love” now on Blu-ray!

Ryan Van Hill-Song and his wife Sadie are a happily married couple despite their age gap. Ryan’s ardent journey and dream to reach beyond the clouds and into space is on the verge of coming true while Sadie decides to take a break from the vocational rigmaroles of her young life. Ryan’s NASA mission goes without a hitch except for a brief loss in communication with headquarters. Upon his return home, Sadie notices a behavioral difference in her once loving husband who now acts strange in his own surroundings and around her. Despite a few amorous encounters, Ryan becomes strangely obsessed with the extraterrestrial concept through alien themed movies, local artistic murals, and anecdotal accounts that are engrained into their home city’s culture. As Sadie begins to suspect Ryan is no longer her husband after learning about her pregnancy, NASA agents move in to chase down Ryan and capture his true being.

Strap yourself in to blast off into the great unknown of extraterrestrial copulating with Simon Oliver’s 2024, Sci-Fi romance-drama, “Alien Love.” The serial Australian documentary director puts a pause on the confluence of beings from the space frontier, the mysticism of the occult and supernatural, and historical contexts to land terrestrial blending-aliens amongst us, hiding under human skin as our family and as our lovers; in this case with “Alien Love,” as astronaut and husband Ryan Van Hill-Song with a concealed agenda. The script, that presses themes of usual relationships and their potential inertia, is penned by the principal male lead, Nathan Hill, and Simon Salamon, both of whom are coming hot off the script press of their last feature “Lady Terror” from the previous year. Hill dons the producer hat as well under his production company NHProductions with Sector 5 Films’ Warren Croyle footing and distributing the microbudget feature.

Nathan Hill producers, co-writes, and stars in most of his pictures. However, for “Alien Love,” the accomplished filmmaker breaks up the routine monotony by taking a backseat in the director’s chair to enhance focus on Ryan Van Hill-Song, the astronaut who returns to Earth and is not the same man who left his planet. Aside from a few lines in flashbacks and a quick, laconic replies here and there, Hill mostly lounges about or takes a run while in character, leaving the brunt of the dialogue and emotional work in the hands of Ira Chakraborty, a model-actress in her full-length feature debut in the role of Sadie. Ira carries the story that mostly just stagnates with scenes of Ryan’s wandering alien obsession and absence seizure indifference all the while Sadie frustratingly can’t decipher her husband’s acute loafing and lack of any kind of emotion in contrast to the flashback lovey-dovey affections. The craftier part about this devolving dynamic is the theme it represents between fantastical expectations and grim reality, especially between two considerably different people on a collision course of marital decline. Throw a baby in the mix, a more calamitous cocktail ensues. NASA agents, supervised by Colonel John Smith (Edward Mylan), are on the hunt for the close encounter, and if you’re wondering what the hell is NASA is doing in Australia, well, let me school you on that there is a NASA deep space communication center in the land of Oz to allow seamless communications to spacecrafts when the Earth rotates. The more you know… “Alien Love” fills out the cast with Eleanor Powell, Demz Lato, Sam Ready, Chase Kauffman, John Robertson, Robert Rafik Awad, Ben Bramwell, Savita Bungay, Emily Farrell, and Dan Heubel.

Preboarding the “Alien Love” ship saw an audience collective view of similarities toward the Rand Ravich directed, Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron-starring “The Astronaut’s Wife,” and after soaring through “Alien Love’s” story, that general consensus is spot on as the Simon Oliver helmed, Nathan Hill production is a remake of the 1999 New Line theatrical release on a much smaller scale. Going into the film knowing this, there ironically emerges less subjectivity because expectations were set and the cognitive ability to examine “Alien Love” for more than just a remake is formed. The aforementioned theme of wedging differences between two people is characterized by the age gap and ambitions. Ryan’s an older man, this fact is mentioned a few times early on, chasing a space dream and Sadie is somewhere 20-30 years his junior and judging with conversations with friend Abbey, Sadie is or was in university. Love at first is healthy, vibrant, exciting, and hopeful like any first-time marriage but the gap, symbolized by Ryan’s change, becomes alienating, literally, and the once strong bond between the two lovers is now reduced to the occasional sex and just being in proximity of each other as interests change and connections become stale. This unfortunate walk-through of life is told through the sensationalism of an alien inhabiting human form, but the message of marital decay is loud and clear with all the hallmarks of a souring union between two very different people. When the alien does make the screen, the simplistic mask man works here with a decent alien archetype look without it being overly schlocky; however, the need more for more context is sorely missing as Oliver goes for more style than substance as the need for digital lens flares and art compositions unbraid the build of the story.

From Sector 5 Films comes “Alien Love” on an Australian Blu-ray home video. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD-R has lossy picture quality simply because it’s a BD-R; however, the bandwidth appears to be adequate to suppress artefact issues and sustain a stable, reliable quality throughout. Details and colors are generally soft, textures lack distinction, in what is more of a hazy aura veneer with muted colors and no dense shadows, over kneaded by warm pink and rich blue gels to heighten the dreamy affect. Delineation works for the cityscapes and some handful of land planted with powerlines and towers coupled with interesting camera angles and work. The only audio option is a lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix that heavy on exposition and Jamie Murgatroyd’s mingling with epic soundtrack. Dialogue layer has dynamic change depending on how cavernous rooms can be or if background ambience levels are higher that suppress vocal projection. Overall design diffuses fine from a stereo output with clean and clear dialogue. Special features include a feature parallel audio commentary with stars Nathan Hill and Ira Chakraborty, an interview with Hill and Chakraborty going over fan questions, interview with esteemed John Hipwell (“Lady, Stay Dead”), deleted scenes with commentary from Nathan Hill, a blooper reel, still gallery, and trailer. With the encoded special features packed with goodies, the Blu-ray design and package leans toward more standard fare with a traditional Amaray case with no inserts or other tangible accompaniments. Primary cover art looks inexpensive, air brushed, and circa science films of the 1950s. Disc is pressed with the same image. The 75-minute feature comes unrated with region free playback.

Last Rites: “Alien Love” will not be the knock-your-socks-off science fiction film of the year nor will it dazzle with awe-inspiring special effects. What Simon Oliver and Nathan Hill specialize with their latest film is storytelling of a disintegrating couple during alienating times, plain and simple, with a heavy emphasis on the plain and simple.

Its Not Strange Love, It’s “Alien Love” now on Blu-ray!

In the year 2022, orbital satellites carry nuclear missiles and maintain flight patterns around the moon. When a satellite repair ship, known as a “refab” ship called Spaecore 1, attempts to intercept a satellite for maintenance, the system wide computer goes into an unexplained power failure that jeopardizes communications, life support, and navigation. Drifting helpless toward sector Centrus B-40, the dark side of the moon, all hope will be lost within 24 hours unless operations can be restored, but a mysterious spacecraft, NASA’s Discovery shuttle, heads toward them and docks onto their outer hull without so much of a hail from the shuttle. Captain Flynn and Lt. Giles investigate a seemingly abandoned ship until coming across a dead body of a presumed missing NASA astronaut, eviscerated with an opening left in a perfect triangle as the cause of death, and that opens the door to more questions than answer as a sinister presence boards their ship, pursuing damnation for their souls.

Just think, in two more years, weapons of mass destruction satellites will loom just above fluffy white clouds, ready to mushroom clouds out of targets with a 10-ton yield; at least that’s what director D.J. Webster and the screenwriters, identical twins Carey W. Hayes and Chad Hayes, modeled the future when conjuring up this delectable Sci-Fi horror film approx. 20 years ago. With special effects models and techniques that withstand against powerhouse space films, such as from the immaculate effects of Alien franchise, “The Dark Side of the Moon” becomes more than just a 1973 Pink Floyd album title Fabricated out of warped creativity of old and new concepts with a Biblical horror base that only the 1990’s could loosely spin into an hour and 27 minute feature, for many of the filmmakers involved, “The Dark Side of the Moon” credits as their first taste of a feature length, large scale production, especially with the mainly music video director D.J. Webster, who loves his closeups, and director of photography Russ T. Alsobrook, as they auto clicks into a team that seemingly have experience of seasoned veterans or, perhaps, spent some secretive, unlogged time in space. Who knows, but the outcome ruminates about the dark side of religion and how each of us deal with it internally.

When mullets and giant framed glasses are afoot, the late 80’s, early 90’s filming era is beyond evident with interestingly gritty characters lined up for an evil figure eager to knock them down and, of course, the story’s lead character is the mullet sporting pilot named Lt. Giles Stewart who is unwittingly thrust into the fast track of a hero’s lane. Giles’s atheism framework has a pleasant sardonicism about it when face-to-face with the immortal conqueror of his ship and crew. Will Bledsoe paints Giles as such as faithless space pilot, bound to duty, and willing to do anything to just not save himself, but others. One of the only recognizable faces, at least for myself, in the cast is John Diehl. The “Stargate” and “The Shield” television actor is best at being a wild card in turmoil situations and as shipmate Phillip Jennings, the same can be expected without being utterly conventional or warrant any kind of typecast label. Another actor to note is Alan Blumenfeld as the ship’s panicky Dr. Dreyfuss Steiner. Blumenfeld, who had a role in the best Jason Voorhees film, in my humble opinion, “Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, is once again stalked by a larger-than-life villain while maintaining a profusely sweaty persona that’s symbolically intended to be true, unadulterated fear. As a whole, the cast is amazing regardless of some first time filmmakers at the helm, rounding out with “Re-Animator’s” Robert Sampson as the ship’s Capt. Flynn, Joe Turkel from the first “Blade Runner,” “Blood Frenzy’s,” and overall erotic thriller goddess, Wendy MacDonald, stunt man (“Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, “Army of Darkness”) Ken Lesco, and another “Friday the 13th” actor, Camilla More, or Tina from “The Final Chapter,” as the stationary sexy, ship’s onboard computer-robot named Lesli – think on the same lines as Mother from “Alien,” but in the flesh.

What makes “The Dark Side of the Moon” very interesting is the film being an unofficial precursor to other science fiction horror films like “Event Horizon” that was released roughly seven years later. Space as this gateway to Hell concept is sorely under-appreciated and underutilized. Space is already vastly frightening to begin with and by adding a devilish abyss aspect to it makes the idea an absorbingly scary thought. What’s also fascinating is the Hayes brother. “The Dark Side of the Moon” is the brothers’ roots film; the proverbial patient zero that spread successful movie writing careers for the twins, spawning turn of the century horror with the remake of “House of Wax” that saw the on-screen death of Paris Hilton, had “Underworld” star Kate Beckinsale track down a killer in Antarctica in “Whiteout,” and they penned “The Conjuring” that constructed its very own universe.

“The Dark Side of the Moon” comes in at #2 on the Unearthed Films’ Classics label distributed MVDVisual. The newly restored 4K transfer of the Wild Street Pictures production is presented in a widescreen, 1.85:1 aspect ratio, region A Blu-ray release. Surprisingly sharp despite consistent low-lit scenes and not as washed like previous VHS versions, this restoration fine tunes the nitty-gritty specifics needed for proper presentation that doesn’t falter from heavy digital noise or blotch artifacts and shows no signs of enhancing The English language LPCM 2.0 audio track is strapping for a dual channel format. Dialogue pronounced clearly, ambient spaceship clinks and clunks create atmospheric range and depth, and the relentless brooding score by “Society’s” Mark Ryder and Phil Davies delivers shuddering spinal-tingles without being monotonously dull. Bonus features include a commentary with executive producer Paul and Unearthed Films’ Stephen Biro, interviews with Alan Blumenfeld, FX artist R. Christopher Biggs, and stuntman Chuck Borden, plus vintage audio track, trailers, photo gallery, and a insert booklet that dives into about the production and the cast. All packed into a nice little slipcover package. “The Dark Side of the Moon” pioneers into the future of space horror as a good ole dread-inducing fear-monger of the great expanse, deserving this Unearthed Films’ release, hands down.