Fango has captured the exclusive trailer to ALIEN OPPONENT (formerly OPPONENT), the latest sci-fi/horror/comedy hybrid from the Connecticut-based studio Synthetic Cinema. The movie, which will debut in late summer/early fall on Syfy sister channel Chiller, stars THEY LIVE’s Roddy Piper and WOLVESBAYNE’s Jeremy London.

“The movie is basically done,” says ALIEN OPPONENT director Colin Theys, who also helmed Synthetic’s BANSHEE!!! and has served as a visual FX artist for the company. “We’re just finishing up the last bits of the score now [by Matthew Llewellyn]. It’s sounding really great! ALIEN OPPONENT will be premiering on NBC Universal’s Chiller network late this summer and will probably be on DVD and VOD around the same time.”

ALIEN OPPONENT, which we last reported on here, deals with an extraterrestrial who crashlands in an enormous rural junkyard and becomes the target of assorted bounty hunters and local bumpkins. The filmmaker adds that the movie, which co-stars BANSHEE!!!’s Ashley Bates, ASSAULT OF THE SASQUATCH’s Sari Gagnon, Adrienne LaValley and Cuyle Carvin (pictured above), represents a big step up for Synthetic. “It is without a doubt our most accomplished film yet,” Theys says. “There’s really nothing else out there quite like this movie. The world is unique, we’ve got some really fun characters and some original sequences. It’s jam-packed with insanity. The production values are up, and the movie is loaded with effects. We were more ambitious on all fronts with ALIEN OPPONENT. There are more characters, more deaths, more creatures, more locations, more jokes, more action sequences and more effects. We also tried to deliver on the premise. Too often you see the trailer for a crazy-looking low-budget film and then discover that every good sequence was in the trailer. We have action sequences that last 10 minutes. There are major setpieces not even seen in the trailer.”

In addition, ALIEN OPPONENT features name players among its cast, a first for Synthetic, which usually casts little-known East Coast and New England actors in its films. “Having Piper and London on set was fantastic,” Theys says. “They’re experienced and talented guys! And their personas gave us a fun variable to play with in casting. When Piper arrived on set, he was prepared with four different readings of his character [the gun-toting Father Melluzzo], and we rolled through them until we found the sweet spot.”

The film takes various genres and throws them in a blender for one enjoyable mashup. “We’ve got humor, horror and sci-fi, but the mix is a little different than in our previous films, though definitely in the same vein,” Theys says of the film, scripted by BANSHEE!!!/ASSAULT OF THE SASQUATCH’s John Doolan. “I tried to keep the tone a bit more consistent throughout. Having the people pursue the alien instead of the alien pursue the people let us do a lot of new stuff and avoid the necessary but clichéd horror scenes. ALIEN OPPONENT is funny, but not as campy as SASQUATCH or BANSHEE!!! The movie takes its premise seriously, but still finds humor along the way.”

Besides the Chiller launch, Synthetic Cinema has a few major irons in the fire for the year ahead. You can find out more about the company here.

 

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