In Space, No One Can Hear You Yawn
There’s a special kind of irony in a movie called Stranded that manages to leave not only its characters but its audience utterly abandoned. Roger Christian’s Stranded (2013) promises a claustrophobic lunar survival thriller starring Christian Slater, but what it delivers is a lifeless, low-budget imitation of Alien—if Alien had been filmed in a dentist’s office with a fog machine and a bucket of apathy.
This movie doesn’t so much “pay homage” to Ridley Scott’s masterpiece as it does rummage through Alien’s trash, pull out the first recognizable idea it finds, and tape it together with Canadian tax credits.
The Setup: The Moon Called—It Wants Its Plot Back
The film’s premise sounds fine on paper: four astronauts are stuck in a lunar mining base after a meteor storm, and something nasty hits a ride inside. That “something nasty,” of course, is an alien life form—because why risk originality when you can risk your audience’s patience instead?
Ava Cameron (Amy Matysio) finds spores in one of the meteor fragments and, instead of immediately doing what anysensible scientist would do—burning them and calling it a day—she brings them inside. Naturally, she gets infected, and within hours she’s pregnant. Yes, really. One moment she’s checking lunar rocks, the next she’s giving birth to a creature that makes Prometheus look like a documentary on responsible science.
Meanwhile, Colonel Gerard Brauchman (Christian Slater, looking like he’s counting down the seconds until the paycheck clears) tries to keep the crew alive while the alien starts killing people and impersonating them. Because apparently, even in deep space, identity theft is a problem.
The Acting: Wooden, Floating, and Occasionally in Orbit
Christian Slater has built an entire career out of playing edgy, smirking oddballs. Here, he’s… none of those things. As Colonel Brauchman, he delivers every line like he’s trying to conserve oxygen and enthusiasm simultaneously. He’s supposed to be the grizzled leader, but mostly he just looks mildly inconvenienced—like a man who ordered steak and got tofu.
Amy Matysio’s Ava spends most of the film alternating between hysteria and exhaustion, which, to be fair, mirrors the audience’s experience. Brendan Fehr as Dr. Krauss plays “science guy” with all the charisma of a malfunctioning Roomba, while Michael Therriault as Bruce Johns turns in a performance that could only be described as “present.”
Even the alien, when it finally appears, seems to have given up. Its shapeshifting antics are limited to bad lighting and worse prosthetics, as if it too realized halfway through production that none of this was worth the effort.
The Script: Now with 30% More Nonsense
Let’s talk about the writing—or, as it’s known here, “word-like noises delivered between jump cuts.” Co-written by Roger Christian and Christian Piers Betley, the script feels like it was drafted by two men who watched Alien once, fell asleep halfway through, and then tried to rewrite it from memory while stuck in an elevator.
The dialogue is so clunky you could use it to patch a hole in the lunar base. Gems include:
“We’re running out of oxygen!”
“It’s not the oxygen I’m worried about…”
and the immortal:
“It’s evolving.”
The characters constantly explain things that don’t need explaining (“We need to fix the air system!”) while ignoring things that do need explaining—like why the alien spores apparently come with a fertility plan.
Every scene plays like a first draft someone forgot to edit, filled with jargon meant to sound scientific but landing somewhere between “high school science fair” and “Buzz Lightyear fanfiction.”
The Production Design: IKEA in Space
To be fair, Stranded was made on a low budget in Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, that budget appears to have been spent entirely on Christian Slater’s coffee and one very committed fog machine.
The lunar base, Ark, looks less like a futuristic installation and more like a repurposed hallway from a Canadian high school. The control panels are made of blinking Christmas lights and stickers that say “Data.” The doors open and close with the majesty of a closet in an RV. The lighting is permanently set to “moody flashlight found in a toolbox.”
The production design is so minimal you half expect a boom mic to show up and ask for a speaking role. There are only four people in the entire movie, and yet somehow, the set feels overcrowded—by boredom.
The Alien: Now You See It, Now You Wish You Didn’t
Let’s discuss the creature, the supposed heart of this horror movie. First off, calling it a “shapeshifting alien” is generous. What we mostly get is a blob of bad CGI and the occasional actor covered in vaguely moist makeup. The creature design is what happens when someone reads H.R. Giger’s notes but can only afford Play-Doh.
When it takes human form, it just looks like… the same actor, but sweaty. It’s the least convincing shape-shifter since that one time your substitute teacher tried to convince you he was “cool.”
The few times it does something remotely alien—like crawl through vents or kill someone—it’s obscured by shaky cam and edits so frantic you’d think the movie was trying to hide its own embarrassment.
The Atmosphere: Tension-Free Since Minute Five
A great sci-fi horror thrives on isolation, dread, and paranoia. Stranded manages none of the above. Instead of claustrophobic tension, we get people sitting in chairs, talking about their feelings while the air supply runs low. Instead of fear, we get a series of mild inconveniences.
The pacing is glacial. For a movie that’s only 84 minutes long, it somehow feels longer than 2001: A Space Odyssey, minus the philosophy and plus several minutes of people typing angrily into keyboards.
Every scene that could be scary is immediately undercut by something stupid—like a jump scare that turns out to be a space door closing or a dramatic music cue announcing that yes, we’re still on the moon.
The Ending: Evolution of Disappointment
After an hour of recycled tropes and muffled screaming, Stranded limps toward a finale that’s equal parts predictable and insulting. The alien survives, of course, because this movie really thought it was getting a sequel.
Colonel Brauchman sends a warning message to Earth, but it’s far too late—the escape pod has landed, and the alien is already out and evolving. The implication is that humanity is doomed. The reality is that the audience was doomed from the opening credits.
It’s the kind of ending that makes you want to write a thank-you note to gravity for keeping you from floating into a theater showing this again.
Roger Christian: From Star Wars to Star Bores
It’s hard to believe this is the same Roger Christian who once worked on Star Wars and Alien. He helped design the Millennium Falcon, for crying out loud! Now he’s directing a movie that looks like it was filmed inside a broom closet with a borrowed GoPro.
Watching Stranded feels like watching a once-great musician play kazoo at a mall opening. There’s talent buried in there somewhere—but you’ll need a shovel, patience, and possibly therapy to find it.
Final Thoughts: Abandon Ship
Stranded wants to be a serious, atmospheric sci-fi horror. What it actually is, is a made-for-TV episode of Ancient Alienswith delusions of grandeur. It’s derivative, underlit, and about as scary as a malfunctioning Roomba.
Christian Slater deserves better. The audience deserves better. Saskatchewan definitely deserves better.
Verdict: 1 out of 5 stars.
The only thing truly alien about Stranded is how it managed to make space so boring. If you want real terror, skip the movie and stare into a broken microwave—that has better lighting, pacing, and character development.
