Scintilla

7.8 of 10. Not to be confused with the purely horrible Hybrid from 2007 or the at least enjoyable Super Hybrid of 2010, this is a quality film using reality-based horror built on sci-fi, war, and genetic experimentation.

While the misinformed, weak science sci-fi films still fantasize and fill in gaps of traveling massive distances through variations on frozen sleep, this eliminates the distance problem completely by avoiding space travel to or from the planet. Instead, it takes advantage of well known, everyday scientific events, modern conflicts around Russia, secret government operations, and genetic experimentation to build a surprisingly plausible story with a smooth, though a little too obvious, setup for a sequel.

Given early reviews, the non-stereotypical look of the alien probably is a little too much for status quo critics to handle. It doesn't feel or look under-budgeted. The only thing hard science fiction fans can criticize involves telepathy and telekinesis. Such, however, is often the ouch with alien sci-fi - writers going complete fantasy on alien abilities.

I grabbed this off Netflix as a random, but was pleasantly surprised.

This is a film split into two halves. The first half is quite a tense and gritty war flick. A bunch of mercenaries have to infiltrate the stronghold of a eastern European warlord. The characters are quickly defined and interesting.

The second half of the film has a definite Scifi tilt. The objective of the mercenaries is a creepy underground laboratory where the guy from the DVD cover is lurking.

The action is hard hitting and the setting is atmospheric and interesting. The makers have stayed within the budget for the special effects and haven't been lured in by cheap, distracting cgi.

I can't quite decide how I feel about the ending, but that in itself is probably a good thing.

I found this to be an enjoyable, gritty romp. I wouldn't have paid to see this at the cinema but as a Netflix movie this is way above the average on offer.

Sent to a remote military facility, a team of mercenaries expecting an easy extraction operation instead find themselves the target of a deadly mission involving human/alien hybrids stalking them which compounds their escape attempts through the local militia.

This here was a highly flawed effort overall. One of it's few good qualities here is the creepiness of the mission and what they're trying to accomplish since the facility looks quite dingy and dirty. The general concept of the group sneaking into that place under those orders gives this a nice enough base to start with, and the fact that the place is quite creepy in how they work that out is a rather enjoyable enough aspect in this one. As well, the few action scenes here, from the shootouts in the bunker to the rather strong and frantic escape and the ensuing gunfights with the soldiers on the surface allow for some rather nice energetic sequences throughout here, and with that comes some nice gore along the way with the practical effects really providing some strong parts to this one. While these here work nicely, it does have a few major flaws. One of the main issues is the film's incredibly slow pacing that drags this one out and makes it feel quite bland. The opening of the film, with all their infiltration tactics and sneaking past security that manages to be quite bland overall, not really generating any kind of horror thrills at all and just concentrating on their endless exploration of the base which takes forever to utilize any kind of idea what's going on. That it shows this going through every step of the way as they slowly make their way down the various floors and into the different sections of the bunker in a step-by-step walk-through which is seemingly endless that merely serves to highlight how low the budget for this one really is. That factor also makes itself known in the utterly laughable alien hybrids that are at the center of this one, which is just normal humans with awful CGI for multiple orbiting eyeballs or decked out in hilarious giant bug-headed masks and S&M-styled leather outfits which are just laugh-inducing more than frightening. Since the rampage through the facility is supposed to hinge on them being in contact with these supposedly frightening beings, the ending of this one is ruined highly because of the laughably non-threatening main creatures lowering this highly. As well, the nonsensical motivations and questioning for everyone here during the revelation about what they're supposed to be there for doesn't make any sense at all since it does is provide useless reasoning for double-crosses during the time they're supposed to be battling the main alien so that tends to cause those scenes to be reduced in power overall. Coupled with a truly ridiculous finale that has an incredibly ridiculous finale twist to it, this one here really had a lot to dislike about it.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

A group of mercenaries are sent on a mission to get something important from an underground research facility in Eastern Europe.

Scintilla is a film that shares some common ground with last year's Frankenstein's Army. After all, it is about a group of soldiers infiltrating a grungy underground bunker and discovering strange experiments therein. But it lacks the sheer imagination of that film unfortunately. It has some interesting ideas though, but most of the best threads are never developed very much, such as the skeleton faced biker or the bubble headed underground defenders of the laboratory or even the man with the mutating arm. All of these ideas show great promise but not much is made of them. Not only that but when we do discover the nature of the Scintilla project it is a little underwhelming. So there are areas where this movie fell a little short and others where it didn't build on its own good ideas. Having said all that, it's not really a bad film either. 'Corridors underground' sci-fi/horror films are notorious for being awfully tedious, on account of the limited sets and action. Scintilla at least tries to make its limited set-up a little interesting and it never really gets boring. It doesn't really add up to anything particularly great but it's entertaining enough and does have some memorable moments, even if it ultimately doesn't make the most of its potential.

This had everything I want from a lower budget, idea driven video. I did not want to kill-off the main characters, which is not a given.

The concept was developed and delivered quite well. Primarily it was easy to watch, no irritating aspects.

Notwithstanding the fact it did not hit all the demographic pulling requirements nor the pop-culture mandates such as the ubiquitous LGBT genuflecting.

If you can live without the aforementioned and like the genre, give this a try. I am accustomed to low-end budget movies that show it, primarily in the lack of story. This is not one of those. It lacked some heart but it did pull you in, suspend your disbelief....escaped for a bit.