By Simon Thompson
Director Gabriel Bienczycki and writer/co-director Richard Karpala’s Falling Stars is both a beautifully shot and soundtracked, yet also formulaic, poorly paced, piece of science fiction horror that doesn’t quite capture the best qualities of the influences that it seeks to emulate.
The plot of Falling Stars takes place in a world where witchcraft and witches exist, leading three brothers named Mike (Shaun Duke Jr), Sal (Andrew Gabriel), and Adam (Rene Leech) on an adventure with their friend Rob ( Greg Poppa), who wants to take them to a location in the desert where he claims to have killed and buried a witch. Once they arrive at the location of the witches’ corpse however, they accidentally desecrate the body leaving them cursed and marked to be abducted by the witches that patrol the skies. After discovering the only way to lift the curse is to burn the witches’ dead body before sunrise, the brothers head back into the desert knowing they could be killed or abducted at any time.
Duke Jr, Gabriel, Leech, and Poppa, to their credit, all give solid performances in their respective roles, with the first three leads showing good chemistry with one another to the extent you could see them as being related.
The cinematography of Falling Stars, is a joy to look at. Gabriel Bienczycki’s decision to have the story entirely take place at night, as well as his use of warm colours such as dark blue and red give the movie a distinct visual palette that is a joy to behold.
On the other hand, the film’s story is an incredibly cliched one with Karpala’s script borrowing from movies such as Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Explorers, The Goonies, Stand By Me, and Near Dark yet doing nothing original with them at all. This renders the plot incredibly predictable as, if you grew up watching what I previously listed, you will inevitably know exactly what’s coming next no matter what .
The other issue that the script has is with exposition. This comes in the form of a radio DJ ( played by J. Aaron Boykin), who the narrative cuts back to constantly so as to relay information to the audience. This adds in a tonne of unnecessary padding, when it would have been much better for the worldbuilding to be done in a largely visual way.
Overall, despite some neat visual flourishes, Falling Stars is a frustrating viewing experience due to its numerous pacing issues and a formulaic plot. If you’re looking for a fun throwback to 1980’s horror and science fiction, the first season of Stranger Things this is not.
Falling Stars is available now from XYZ Films.
Bloody Flicks 