EJECTA (2014)

Ejecta (2014)
Directed by: Chad Archibald, Matt Wiele
Written by: Tony Burgess
Starring: Adam Seybold, Julian Richings, Lisa Houle

EJECTA (2014)
Directed by Chad Archibald and Matt Wiele

After 30 years of speaking, writing and blogging about his experience with extraterrestrials, William Cassidy invites doucumentary filmmaker Joe Sullivan to his home. Although unable to recollect his invitation to Joe, he decides to tell him his story on the evening of an historic solar storm. Watching the lights in the sky, the duo realise something isn’t quite right and it isn’t long before they’re being hunted by a returning advanced lifeforce and the government secret service.

After reading the synopsis, I was rather excited to see sci-fi thriller EJECTA. Alien movies, when done right, can be a very frightening experience. Disappointingly, EJECTA is a mish-mash of filmmaking, employing flash-back found-footage, first person and static camera shots to tell a story. What results is an incoherent narrative about a man plagued by the voice of the extraterrestrials he came into contact with all those years ago, and now they’ve returned. The military want to know all about this advanced lifeforce and take William prisoner. Under severe questioning and torture from Dr. Tobin and her cohorts, William is forced into revealing all he knows but remains steadfast. Can the night-vision footage from the soldiers currently on site at William’s home and the recovered footage which Joe Sullivan shot reveal any information about the events of that night and the lifeforce the Earth is dealing wit?

Julian Richings, he of Cube fame, stars as William Cassidy, an exhausted human being in severe pain and punishment since his first interaction with the aliens. With memory loss, voices in his head and awakening in strange places, anywhere from 15 miles away from home, William is tired of suffering this tiring, painful existance. The arrival of enthusiastic astronomer and filmmaker Joe (Adam Seybold) to his home could be just opportunity to convince people of his story once and for all.

With low audio at times and the constant switching back and forth between the different locations and filming styles, I found it difficult to keep up with the narrative of EJECTA. With the action set at night time, the handheld found footage section of the film is hard to decipher with William and Joe running around in the woodland and a barn, away from the beings chasing after them. This part of the film though does lend itself to some fine moments when outlines and blurred images of the creatures are caught on camera. This teasing works much better than the up-close semi-reveal that is shown later on in the movie.

Despite an impassioned performance from Richings, EJECTA doesn’t quite work in my opinion. The structure of the movie hampers the narrative and the good ideas displayed here and there. Re-structured in the right way, the film could be quite a tense and thrilling sci-fi but in its current format, it’s a struggle to decipher or enjoy.

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