Review: Stranded (2013)

Cast: Christian Slater, Brendan Fehr, Amy Matysio
Director: Roger Christian
Country: Canada
Genre: Horror | Sci-Fi
Official Trailer: Here

Editor’s Note: Stranded is now open in limited release and on VOD

To understand just what’s wrong with Stranded, Roger Christian’s low-key lost-in-space sci-fi, we have to look back to 1981’s Galaxy of Terror, perhaps the most well-known—until Prometheus, at least—of the many films to “borrow” the narrative framework of Alien. Produced under the auspices of Roger Corman, never one to miss a trend, Galaxy of Terror saw the Freudian horror and psychosexual subtlety of Ridley Scott’s approach and raised it an exploitative on-screen alien rape. Taking Alien’s cue and channelling it through the “lowbrow” avenue of schlock, Corman cast arguably as significant an influence as did Scott, not least of all considering that Galaxy’s second unit director was none other than James Cameron. Alien is, by miles and miles and miles, the better of the two films, but Galaxy’s unique spin on the genre—no matter how closely aped—has allowed it too to stand the test of time.

Scripted by Christian Piers Betley and director Roger Christian—who, as well as infamously directing Battlefield Earth, acted as one of Scott’s art directors—the film’s contrivance of a carbon monoxide leak constitutes its sole effort to make any major divergence from its clearest forebear, and one that only grows more tedious as time goes by.

Stranded, by contrast, will not: no more directly pillaged from Alien than was Galaxy, its narrative’s unwillingness to similarly try something new is its immediate—though certainly not only—downfall. Scripted by Christian Piers Betley and director Roger Christian—who, as well as infamously directing Battlefield Earth, acted as one of Scott’s art directors—the film’s contrivance of a carbon monoxide leak constitutes its sole effort to make any major divergence from its clearest forebear, and one that only grows more tedious as time goes by. All the other elements are creakily put in place: the tensions between the crew; the arrival of an alien specimen, seemingly undeveloped; a rapid decline in health; a sudden, striking arrival. This is a film that follows a formula so closely you could set your watch by it.

Though perhaps that’s not entirely fair: Betley and Christian make some small effort to shake things up in the form of their antagonist, whose uncertain position—exacerbated by the possibility of CO hallucinations; this aspect of the plot only gets sillier—and shape-shifting abilities make it at least visually distinct from the Xenomorph. In fact, in its earliest stages it might even be said to be well designed, its shades of deformed human child making it—with the right lighting—passably creepy. There are moments like these where Christian, all his theft notwithstanding, carves some cinematographic and staging success, but even these triumphs fall prey to budgetary limitations, which render the moon base setting of the movie decidedly unspectacular.

It’s a small mercy, at least, that Slater and his fellow cast members are confident enough to carry proceedings, though only in the way a kindly passer-by might carry a wounded dog to the vet.

Scrolling through the movie’s IMDb page, the eye can’t help but be drawn to a trivia item that claims the technology with which Christian Slater’s colonel character tries and fails to call for help is actually just an LED reading light. That’s the level of expenditure we’re dealing with here, and while it’s inconspicuous for so small a detail, on a larger scale it robs the movie of the sort of spatial possibilities that might better externalise its atmosphere of isolation and claustrophobia. The impetus falls to Christian’s direction, which lacks in both its framing and—the aforesaid examples aside—its lighting the nuance to make any more of this scenario than the lacking writing.

It’s a small mercy, at least, that Slater and his fellow cast members are confident enough to carry proceedings, though only in the way a kindly passer-by might carry a wounded dog to the vet. They’re not given a great deal to do, but they do it well enough; Michael Therriault, whose character’s form the creature opts to take for a good deal of the film, is particularly game in tossing himself into the role. He can’t be held accountable when it all goes a bit Pandorum. But then that’s almost a relief, to see Stranded steal from another source. Christian is resting on laurels to which he has no claim here, blithely treating Alien as though it’s his to remake. It’s not, and his awful appropriation of its ideas says as much about that movie’s greatness as his own’s absence thereof.

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Ronan Doyle

Director of Movies On Demand & Sr. Staff Film Critic at Next Projection

Having spent the vast majority of my life sharing in the all too prevalent belief than cinema is merely dumbed-down weekend escapism for the masses, I was lucky enough to turn on a television at the exact right moment to have my perspectives on the medium completely transformed. Those first two and a half hours marked the beginning of a new life revolving around—maybe even depending upon—the screen and the depth of artistry, intellectual stimulation, and emotional exhilaration it can provide.

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