Ambition and ammunition combine into a lethal force of entertainment in the clever indie alien abduction horror movie Reset, written and directed by Michael Yammine. Lucas (Adam Holley) looks like 40 miles of rough road as he drives his way back to the house he no longer goes inside. Instead, he crashes in the barn, as he always does now. In the background, a tape recording of his now-gone wife, Evie (Reese Ravencraft), made for him is playing while he stares at a bulletin board of UFO newspaper clippings and strange drawings. As he gets ready to lie on his cot, the audience sees the enormous handprint that covers his bruised back. The voice on the tape recording urges Lucas to never stop looking for their missing daughter, Eden (Lorelai Brown), who was taken by the saucer so long ago.
Lucas drags himself over to the roadside diner for something to eat, feeling like it has been ages since he was there. His waitress, Ruth (Caitlin Westfall), lets him know it has been only 24 hours since he was last there and gets him his usual. Ruth keeps having to fight off advances from Joel (Brendan Curtin), who also has a bone to pick with Lucas. Joel is still sore that Lucas won’t sell him his land so Joel can drill for oil, so Joel needles Lucas about where his wife, Evie, disappeared to.
Ruth breaks up a fight, which is observed by the silent, long-haired stranger, Arthur (Tim O’Hearn), sitting by himself. When Lucas leaves, he accidentally leaves behind a picture of his missing little girl. Ruth heads out to Lucas’s property to give him back the picture. That is when she finds him standing outside with a shotgun, with a flying saucer in the distance, and a big alien with huge fangs running toward them.
“…a flying saucer in the distance and a big alien with huge fangs running toward them…”
I am going to pull back the curtain a little on how I usually rate monster movies. If they are well-crafted and achieve their modest entertainment goals, they get a 6, like Cryptid. If the monster is particularly inspired and there are some interesting scenes sprinkled in the talking bits, they get a 7, like Hell Hole. Reset rates up all the way to an 8, as the filmmaker’s creative intentions aim as high as a UFO can fly.
Yammine pulls off every trick in the indie book to create the biggest show from the lowest budget. First thing gotten right is that he didn’t tease the reveal of the monster, thankfully breaking a major rule of the monster movie formula. Instead of extreme close-ups and brief flashes until the climax, Yammine serves his big buttery alien up in clear view right away, allowing the audience to marvel at every square inch of the outstanding alien costume.
He also does a great job of covering up that there was only one costume to play all of the aliens invading, which is all part and parcel with the indie biz. Yammine also launches a full assault on the worst part of any monster movie: the talking bits in between the monster parts. The intricate plotting between alien attacks almost upstages the action sequences, with the intrigue built. It is rare that such care goes into elevating the storyline of a monster picture as well as managing to make it unpredictable.
"…the filmmaker's creative intentions aim as high as a UFO can fly..."
