The Visitors Is No Mere Close Encounter In First Stills
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Last week, the directing duo known as the Vicious Brothers released the sales art poster for their upcoming alien thriller The Visitors, and it brought to mind such classics as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and V, both in the look of the ship and in the ominously sinister tagline “They Do Not Come in Peace.” But this is no Steven Spielberg movie, as the Vicious Brothers are into making movies with a much more visceral approach. That should be plainly obvious with the still above, the first of several released before the film goes to the auction block at next month’s American Film Market.
Who are The Visitors? Aliens, duh. A group of college kids are having a party weekend at a cabin in the woods when they see a huge fireball fly through the sky and land somewhere in the forest surrounding them. This fireball is undoubtedly the source of whatever alien beings decide to come out and cause havoc for these stereotypical young people.
The Vicious Brothers’ two prior films were the excellent paranormal found-footage flick Grave Encounters and its positively awful sequel. But even though the story behind Grave Encounters 2 was terrible, there were still quite a few enjoyably freaky moments. Hopefully the filmmakers will be able to imbue this alien tale with the same unpredictable insanity that they’re already synonymous with.
Wisely, they’ve chosen not to show us any of the creatures themselves in these images, assuming they exist, and instead focus on this cast of assuredly moronic characters. Of course, maybe they haven’t even gotten to the alien effects yet, since the film is still in production.
I’m pretty sure that dirty screaming face up there is Brittany Allen (Defiance), covered in sludge. I’d prefer not to think about where that goop comes from, or how long she’ll be soaked in it. Perhaps it’s the same kind of mess that’s covering the face seen below, which I’m guessing is either Freddie Stroma (The Philosophers) or Jesse Moss (Final Destination 3). You know the sterotype: everybody covered in sludge looks alike.
The final two are less gruesome and show off the rest of the cast, including Anja Savcic (Repeaters) and Malanie Papalia (Endgame), and the picture beneath that is of Gil Bellows (Parkland), who plays a deputy called in to check things out. I’ve got hard money riding on him appearing in the film for less than seven minutes before getting mutilated in some way.
We probably won’t get a release date for this thing for a while, considering it doesn’t have a distributor yet, but we’ll be keeping an eye in the sky on it.
