Beyond the Sky

When Chris Norton (Ryan Carnes) was a boy, he witnessed an argument of his parents. His mother leaves the house, there is a power surge and she vanishes. His father Peter Norton (Peter Stormare) claims that she has been abducted by aliens. On the present days, Chris is a filmmaker that wants to expose the hoax about alien abduction that destroyed his family. He travels with his crew to New Mexico to interview people that claim that had been abducted by alien that participate in an alien exposition promoted by Bill Johnson (Don Stark). Chris and his camera Brent (Claude Duhamel) meet Emily Reed (Jordan Hinson), who claims that was abducted when she was seven and fourteen years old. She will be twenty-one on three days and Chris decides to stay with her. They fall in love with each other while strange things happen to Chris and Brent. What is the truth about alien abduction?

"Beyond the Sky" is an entertaining sci-fi-mystery film about alien abduction. The screenplay is well-written and the film is developed in adequate pace. Unfortunately the camera work is very poor and the hair of Jordan Hinson is awful. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Interesting movie. A much more realistic approach to the debate between the truth and skepticism about alien abductions, in my opinion.

Overall, I'd say Beyond the Sky is a pretty good alien abduction film. But a few blunders here and there stop it from getting a better score.

The movie makes use of some "cam shots", as it's basically following a video "journalist" (more of a blogger as he has no professionalism) who wants to disprove alien abductions. Fortunately it doesn't suffer from the usual shaky cam, blurry nonsense the "found footage" movies do. The camera shots are used in places and mostly done quite well. Most of the film is standard movie angles and all with just bits of cam footage tossed in at decent moments. Such restraint is definitely appreciated.

On the flip side, the so called journalist really doesn't deserve the title. He basically aggressively accuses alien abductees of lying, constantly getting in their face about things. While it's fine to not be a believer, to basically tell people that they're lying to cover up other traumatic experiences and badgering them about is downright stupid, and usually would result in a punch to the face. As a journalist, or even just a human being, the way the main character treats others is downright shameful.

The special effects are decently done (though most of that budget goes into the last few minutes of the movie). No cheesy special effects that you'd see in a SyFy flick. They have a budget and work well within it to make the most of the presentation.

One of the biggest flaws for me though, is that the movie basically does one of the stupidest things any show or movie could do. It shows you parts of the ending, and then jumps back to X days earlier. NEVER do that. EVER! You're basically spoiling your movie right from the start, which for a lot of people is enough to just give up on it right there. When you know the outcome, then all the rest of the movie becomes mostly meaningless. Everything that could have been an interesting reveal basically becomes an expected outcome.

If not for the horrible idea to put key parts of the end right at the start, this movie would have probably scored an 8 out of 10. It's really a wonderful low budget alien abduction film with a lot going for it.

I liked it a lot. It is very unpredictable and that is why it is so interesting.

A good story with average acting and above average special effects. It's not breaking any molds here, but it's worth the watch if you enjoy stuff about extraterrestrial conspiracies.