To those of you with light stomachs and maybe even lack of an imagination, you may have a hard time enjoying first-person movies. Not everyone can stand the dark, shaky camera angles. The Gracefield Incident marries Hardcore Henry and Cloverfield, and births a beautiful sci-fi horror baby, coming to theaters this month in Russia and limited release online in the U.S. This will be director and writer Mathieu Ratthe’s first full-feature film, but it looks promising.
The premise is pretty basic: three couples spend a weekend in a cabin and some shit goes down. This time it’s through the point-of-view of the director/Matthew Donovan, one of the guys going on the weekend getaway -literally. The first-person perspective gives it a bit of an extra “umph”, setting it apart from other horror documentary-style films, much like Hardcore Henry did for the action genre. Unlike your typical cabin-in-the-woods thriller, however, this one has something better than a masked murderer preying on millennials — aliens! We get a taste of what the aliens might look like, but only brief glimpses, so we have something else to look forward to seeing in this film.
The beginning of the trailer is a little questionable though. Why does Matthew have a prosthetic eye? Why, of all things, would he want to document that weekend? Why put a camera in the eye, period?! Does he know something that we and the other couples don’t know? Frankly, it’s a little creepy. But, interesting all the same.
You can find Alyson on Twitter @alyjour when she’s not co-hosting the Squibardry podcast!