dl-51550

If you don't approach with expectations, and sit back and allow yourself be absorbed into "Blood for Dust," you'll be rewarded with a unique look at the terrifying consequences of bad choices. The most impressive thing about this film is how real it plays. The well-suited cast brings us totally believable characters, even though almost all are virtually unlikable and irredeemable. The cinematography throughout is beautifully evocative...though the winter scenes will do little to boost tourism in Montana;) Overall the pace is deliberate, and stealthy -- except for the violence. The confrontations in this film are not the typical fare of slow motion, excessively loud sound effects and stuntman choreography. The violence here jumps off suddenly, at times is even awkward, and it all feels very real and very evil. As we see the unintended, chilling consequences of bad choices we also see that the most destructive lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

The Friday night time slot is just right for this show. It is a decently fun and non-taxing way to wind down your work week; it moves at a pretty good pace, the plot lines are just about believable, and the characters, overall, are likeable. But this show has one real problem: the so-called "soundtrack". My guess is that the producers are too cheap to have an original soundtrack, something that actually accompanies and helps shape the overall feel of a production. What we get is a collection of random snippets from random artists (mostly Country), probably culled and assembled by one of the producers kids. The overall effect is distracting and very annoying...and why god created your remote's mute button.

The "Alien" franchise does not so much fall into the science fiction genre, as it does into horror. The brilliance of the original movie was its bone chilling suspense: we were masterfully set up for a scare, and boy howdy did we get it. "Alien: Earth" makes the worst mistake possible by showing the "evil monster" early in the first episode, thus killing the suspense that is the very essence of horror. I thought that they did this because, well, we all know what the monster looks like, and "Alien: Earth" was going to try and make its statement as science fiction. But, nope, they're going to milk the monster for all its worth. And by doing so they are bringing the franchise down to the banal level of so many hundreds of fright flicks (think one of the worst "Halloween/I Know What You Did" drivel, set in space...yeah, it is that bad). If you want the real chest exploding "Alien" horror, revisit any of the theater released movies.