UFOs and Aliens seem to be a favorite subject for found footage movies, and for any genre effort to stand out from the crowd, it has to offer something others don't.
ALIENS: ZONE OF SILENCE offers a female protagonist who is not just eye candy but genuinely likable, going on a solitary trip in a real-life Mexican patch of desert called "Zona Del Silencio" (giving the movie its title) in search for her missing alien-hunting brother and his best friend. During her trip, she is assisted remotely by a hacker-type who helps her (and us) see what is going on through several cameras.
We see both footage of her and literal found footage of her brother, and it seems recklessness to the point of stupidity runs in the family. Still, despite this, we don't lose sympathy for her (unlike for her brother, at least a little) because we know she is driven by the love for her brother and not recklessness for its own sake.
That a single attractive woman would go on such a trip without any discernible self-defensive measures, how much equipment and gear she seems to be able to carry, and some of the decisions she makes along the way, all these seem quite unrealistic to me.
Also, the minimalist approach of putting most of the film on the shoulders of one actress is risky, but in the end it pays off because she is convincing. It also helps that the movie features gorgeous scenery shots and nice if understated special effects. The latter is not too surprising since the director has been involved in special effects of major Hollywood productions.
So, overall the movie managed to engage me despite the above issues.
The ending is sort of open-ended and we never see the actual aliens (clearly, anyway!), and this may turn some people off. But to me it was par for the course. Very few movies in this subgenre pull off a crisp "Alien Reveal" well (one that did, to the extent that its ending partially salvaged a flailing movie, is THE GRACEFIELD INCIDENTC(2017)), so going the "fuzzy" route is understandable.
Found Footage and UFO fans will probably like this, depending on how much they are willing to overlook the lack of realism in and minimalism of story.
ALIENS: ZONE OF SILENCE offers a female protagonist who is not just eye candy but genuinely likable, going on a solitary trip in a real-life Mexican patch of desert called "Zona Del Silencio" (giving the movie its title) in search for her missing alien-hunting brother and his best friend. During her trip, she is assisted remotely by a hacker-type who helps her (and us) see what is going on through several cameras.
We see both footage of her and literal found footage of her brother, and it seems recklessness to the point of stupidity runs in the family. Still, despite this, we don't lose sympathy for her (unlike for her brother, at least a little) because we know she is driven by the love for her brother and not recklessness for its own sake.
That a single attractive woman would go on such a trip without any discernible self-defensive measures, how much equipment and gear she seems to be able to carry, and some of the decisions she makes along the way, all these seem quite unrealistic to me.
Also, the minimalist approach of putting most of the film on the shoulders of one actress is risky, but in the end it pays off because she is convincing. It also helps that the movie features gorgeous scenery shots and nice if understated special effects. The latter is not too surprising since the director has been involved in special effects of major Hollywood productions.
So, overall the movie managed to engage me despite the above issues.
The ending is sort of open-ended and we never see the actual aliens (clearly, anyway!), and this may turn some people off. But to me it was par for the course. Very few movies in this subgenre pull off a crisp "Alien Reveal" well (one that did, to the extent that its ending partially salvaged a flailing movie, is THE GRACEFIELD INCIDENTC(2017)), so going the "fuzzy" route is understandable.
Found Footage and UFO fans will probably like this, depending on how much they are willing to overlook the lack of realism in and minimalism of story.