B-Movie Blockbusters: Beyond The Sky
At first glance, Beyond The Sky seemed like a classic low budget alien abduction horror/thriller. Thought it would be the same old story with some little flourishes thrown in. And I won't lie that it doesn't really do much to break the mold of alien abduction movies, but it does over achieve in some areas. What really got me was that despite there being some great instances of terror and suspense, there was this weirdly solid love story that got wrapped around alien abductions.
I mean when you both have been to the mothership what other real sign do you need?
Anyway, lets dive in. Beyond the Sky plays out half like a regular movie and half like some sort of found footage film. Parts of it work as Chris Norton, a documentary filmmaker working on a documentary to prove aliens aren't real. Why does this guy have such a vendetta? Well, his father, mainly. Played by the always great Peter Stormare, Chris's dad is an abusive asshole. One night, during a rough encounter, Chris watches his mother leave while his father tries to get her to come back. A "power surge" brightens the sky and from then on Chris's dad insists his wife was taken by aliens.
So to basically prove his dad wrong Chris goes out to a big UFO convention dead set on proving everything wrong. He's got his crew, which is a Dave Grohl look alike named Brent. Brent is really a solid support character, and is honestly one of the best parts of the film. Despite the fact I kept expecting him to start playing My Hero at random parts of the film, he really does make a lot of the sincerity of the film stick.
So as Chris sets out to somewhat arrogantly debunk abduction stories, he gets right into the thick of the convention and actually gets to interview someone with an abduction story. After hearing the emotional testimony, our boy Chris turns his asshole factor up to 10 as he claims all abductions are just false memories from traumatic events. This causes a ruckus, and Emily, also a former abductee, rushes in to help. She basically unloads some harsh truths on Chris, which Chris interprets as "ask me more stuff, follow me, and try to film our conversations in secret." Geez, Chris. Calm the fuck down, bro.
Emily, still thinking Chris is a jerk, has him come to an Abduction Anonymous meeting, to try to convince the fool. At the meeting, Emily speaks about how she has been abducted three times, each seven years apart. Chris is now super intrigued about mansplaning all of these events to Emily. Chris is a real jerk in the first half of the film, but trust me, his character does grow. In the meanwhile, focus on Brent and his shenanigans.
Chris gets wind of an artifact left the last time Emily was taken. Enter an antique and Halloween prop warehouse run by none other than Dee Wallace. Chris gets to talk to her and see the object, but of course, he needs to find the truth. So our Agent Mulder from Wish.com decides to break into the warehouse and just fucking steal it. What's weird is he wears a body cam. Like what the actual fuck are you doing? Making evidence against yourself? The body cam has night vision but no screen dipshit. For a documentary filmmaker this guy is running around like it’s amateur hour.
As Chris and Brent drive away however, we find that the device activates and buzzes their car for a moment. Truth be told, later they find out from footage of them in the car (because, yes, they have cameras running in their car. At all times.) they find they were in a strange trance for nearly two hours and did not move.
This mixed with a possible alien sighting on the road start to leave more unanswered questions. The movie then twists its way through some crazy paths towards the end.
We get government cover ups, hallucinogenic drugs, ancient Native American rituals, more hallucinations, and eventually, some fucking crazy ass shit starts to happen.
I don't want to go into the ending too much, because as with a lot of these low budget bargain bin films, they have a tendency to just shoot up to 11 in the last half hour and this is no different. So many different things happen. What I will say is that there is a lot of CGI in the end, and for a lower budget film its surprisingly well done. The end really is a chaotic crescendo to what was already a decent, if a bit slow, film.
If you are in the mood for an alien abduction story with a weird romantic streak that builds throughout, this is a solid film to check out. Honestly it’s pretty well done almost all the way around, and when you want a light but spooky film, this one will do the trick.
