The Arrival (1991)

(In French, On Cable TV, October 2022) Be careful about the 1991 version of The Arrival: it’s not the much better 1996 The Arrival starring Charlie Sheen, let alone the infinitely superior 2014 Denis Villeneuve film Arrival. All three of them have something to do with alien arriving on Earth, but this 1991 film goes the cheap-horror route, degenerating into a slasher film with an alien rejuvenation hook. It’s easy and dull in the same way countless other serial killer films of the 1980s-90s are, the same way most horror films equating change with murderous psychopathy are. It feels like a slasher film by and for slasher fans, except without much skill in executing it. The script may have one idea rattling around (I hesitate to say it has a second one), but director David Schmoeller –a veteran of low-budget filmmaking—can’t do much with it. The result is insipid—maybe more interesting to low-budget slasher fans; otherwise, be careful not to confuse it with anything better if it pops up in a listing.