The Medic, which was shot last summer in Lethbridge was somewhat lost in translation over the past year.
What was originally envisioned as a movie about Canadian soldiers kicking zombie ass morphed into a movie about Canadian soldiers kicking alien ass after a substantial re-write and a computer hard drive crash.
The result, which was shot over four days and nights in Lethbridge’s coulees, ends up looking like the Blair Witch Project, if the threat was aliens instead of an unseen witch.
The science fiction/ action-adventure film premiered at the Movie Mill to a sold out crowd Aug. 10.
It will run again, Aug. 11 at 9:45 p.m. and Aug 12 at 7:15 p.m.
The guys at Rambuxious Entertainment set the ominous mood early as a young paramedic sits in an ambulance trying to contact his girlfriend while our own Mark Campbell speaks about an alien landing off the coast of Newfoundland — Omega Day.
Flash forward a few months, and the Medic has joined the military joining a squadron of soldiers flying over the Oldman River in a helicopter, which crashes.
They are outnumbered, but you seldom see the actual aliens, leaving the danger and the drama up to the audience’s imagination. Though the producers abandoned the helmet camera, much of the footage looks like it comes from a helmet camera attached to the medic played by Kevin Johnson, as the screen shakes as the actors run through the coulees.
The soldiers’ mission is to deliver a mysterious box to a safe zone. I won’t tell you what’s in the box, only to paraphrase “the aliens want it and the soldiers have it.”
It is a war film so there are tongue in cheek references to Full Metal Jacket and profanity filled dialogue and lots of action. It is no mere shoot’em up, gore fest though. There are dream sequences and visions of the future, some touching death scenes and the tension builds as the characters grow more panicked through the night.
Ryan Hatt plays the strong, silent action hero, Jon MacBurnie plays an excellent shell-shocked rookie, and Kevin Johnson plays the Medic, who would rather be at home dealing with his divorce than being chased through the woods by two legged, squid faced aliens, who we see at the end.
There are a lot of familiar faces from their last action movie Hoodoo Voodoo including Kevin Johnson, Ryan Hatt, Will Johnson, Adam Munro, Jon Macburnie, Grayson Ogle, Gin Fedotov, Jeff Graham and many more.
The cinematography is gorgeous especially as most of the scenes were shot at night. The film is an enjoyable and spooky romp through the forest, which slowly builds suspense. The ending is left open to interpretation. We never learn if all is well once the soldiers get the box back to the safe zone. If you haven’t seen the Medic, make sure you do.
