Shudder Saturday: First Contact (2023)

I may have mentioned them before, but there are one or two studios/distributors that have me rolling my eyes when I see their logo appear before any many feature. One of them is Wild Eye Releasing. The other is Uncork'd Entertainment. The latter distributor is the one attached to this movie, so my expectations plummeted not long after pressing play. I then saw, however, that this was another film written and directed by Bruce Wemple. Wemple may not be a name familiar to you, but he's an independent film-maker who has managed to deliver one or two gems throughout the last decade (including Monstrous, one of a few films made about a dangerous Sasquatch).

As the title may have already informed you, First Contact is about potential first contact with visitors not from this planet. Casey Bradach (Anna Shields) and Dan Bradach (James Liddell) are siblings trying to get to the bottom of just what their late father (Dr. Ian Bradach, played by Paul Kandarian) was obsessing over. What they discover may just be something important enough to share with the entire world. If they survive their journey.

I'll be brutally honest here, First Contact isn't very good. It certainly pales in comparison to the much more enjoyable creature features that Wemple used to focus on. Having said that, it's also far from atrocious, although I am sure that less forgiving viewers will give up long before the end credits roll and rush to name it as one of their "worst movies ever made". Wemple just cannot quite make things work, despite being a pretty dab hand at making the most of a low budget and limited resources. He needs a better selection of special effects and cast members for First Contact to work as well as it needs to. And some tweaking and editing to help the pacing wouldn't go amiss.

Shields and Liddell do okay, but they're unable to detract from the many moments that feel like too much filler in between the few better moments. Kandarian plays his part as expected, the typical genre doctor who seems to be talking nonsense until people get enough context to help them heed his warnings. Elsewhere, Chris Cimperman has fun being covered in decent make up, Caitlin Duffy does well with her lesser role, and the other supporting players all do what is asked of them.

The special effects are a very mixed bag, but some of them are all the more impressive when you consider what budget Wemple would have been working with, and the horrors of the scenario are presented in an effective way. It's not enough though. Sadly, Wemple covers territory here that has been much better-served in many other films (as well as on TV). It's uninspired, almost consistently dull, and everything leads to a final act that is hard to care about, despite what is at stake. 

I wouldn't say this is awful, and I will always make time for the efforts of Wemple. But, as I already stated a few paragraphs ago, it just isn't very good.

4/10

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