credit: The Dustwalker
For some reason, it appears that earth is kind of a galactic target for some of the worst things that can happen when it comes to aliens, either crash landing or visiting this world for one reason or another. When an alien craft crash lands in Australia, a deadly parasite is released somehow, and the problems begin. One would think that if someone finds an oddity in an area they happen to know something about that they might stop and alert the local authorities before moving forward; then, there wouldn’t be much of a movie. Acts of stupidity often create more storylines than intelligent ones do, which is why The Dustwalker has at least a chance to move forward. To give credit to this movie, it did start as something that could have been a lot of fun and even creepy as hell since it does have the necessary elements required to tell an engaging story. An isolated location, an alien encounter, and simple people who didn’t know what they were dealing with should have been enough to turn this movie into something that might have been remembered and even talked about among many movie fans. But as it goes with a lot of unknown movies, there were a few slips.
credit: The Dustwalker
The idea of an alien virus that has a will of its own is undeniably creepy.
In science fiction movies, there’s usually a lot that human beings don’t understand, especially when it comes to extraterrestrial creatures, but this usually goes double or more for alien parasites, especially those that might look like something else that’s not that dangerous. When the first human is infected, it comes from something as innocuous as rubbing a strange substance between his fingers, which makes it clear that even touching the dust-like material isn’t safe as it’s bound to allow the parasite to seep inward. Once that happens, it becomes easy to see that it takes over and eventually turns its host into a super-strong but mindless automaton with one goal, to keep replicating and spreading.
Of course, there has to be something else that’s out there.
As if the virus didn’t pose a big enough threat, it’s eventually revealed that there’s another life form out in the desert, supposedly causing massive dust storms, perhaps to remain hidden. This nasty-looking thing actually appears to round up the infected humans, but it’s unknown what else it’s there for, as the audience can’t be certain if the thing released the virus on purpose or not. But what the small-town folks know is that the people they’ve lived around are starting to act strangely as they simply stand and stare at various other people throughout the community. Unfortunately, as creepy as this is, the lack of action could easily start to wear on a lot of people since it’s fair to think that had the movie approached this in a different way, it might have appeared a little more exciting and less, well, confusing. As it stands, though, it is easy to cringe just a little when thinking that someone out there found this to be the greatest effort to put forward.
credit: The Dustwalker
When the action does finally start, it feels as though it’s a bit late in the movie.
It’s not tough to see what the director was trying to do when it comes to building up the tension only to burst it like a bubble, but it does feel as though this effect could have been accomplished far sooner in the movie. When the infected humans are met with aggression, however, the virus turns them in a way that allows them to become super-aggressive and even gives them superhuman abilities, such as enhanced strength and the ability to jump great distances. It is strange that the larger alien only spears and gathers the infected human,s but it becomes a little easier to understand later on as the creature confronts the main characters and doesn’t eviscerate them immediately. Instead, it grabs up more of the infected and, upon gathering them in a pit in the desert, immolates them with its breath. It’s an odd turn of events, but as the creature apparently leaves, the dust storm that was such an issue throughout the movie disappears.
It’s not a bad movie, but it’s not a good one.
Several elements made this movie worth watching, but they didn’t exactly come together in a manner that would make it worth calling a blockbuster. If nothing else, though, it did serve as a good form of entertainment. Any type of virus that controls human beings or manages to turn them into something else has a certain fear element that gets to a lot of people. This movie had that, but it kind of lost the necessary attention as things continued to drag along.
Sometimes quick and to the point
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