Although it would be a stretch to call it original, Altered doesn't feel as derivative or as terribly schematic as so many similar features do. Bearing some occasional resemblance to Night of the Living Dead, with a touch of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs, and maybe a set up similar to John Carpenter's Vampires, director Edwardo Sanchez (who delivered the almost unforgettable Blair Witch Project) crafts a sufficiently effective creature feature, which may be silly, but doesn't feature a dull moment.

For seven years Cody, Duke, Otis and Wyatt have been hunting a mysterious race of Alien hominids which dwell in the shadows outside civilization. On the night that they capture a live one for the first time. They bring it home unconscious, but soon realize that they have made a big mistake. First of all, if they kill this creature, his buddies may declare war on humanity. If they don't kill it, the thing could escape and either brainwash or kill our heroes (the only ones who are even aware of the alien's existence)

Altered grabs your attention from scene one, and it maintains stability, but the climax isn't quite as solid as the rest of the film. The manner in which the last twenty minutes play out are the result of one coincidence or contrived moment following another. Of course it could have been worse. Sometimes these movie fall to pieces when trying to bring the stories to a conclusion. Some films don't even have a conclusion at all. (I won't give any names) I will say this for the climactic finale, The make-up job is sensation as we get to see the creature show us the full works, and the scene ends with a sensational wide shot of a spacecraft unlike anything I've seen since maybe Star Wars.

Altered concludes on a note which hints that there could be a sequel. One may doubt that something as small as this will see a follow-up movie, but lets not forget that even Uwe Boll's movies like Bloodrayne and Alone in the Dark (which most critics put on the worst films of the decade list) have somehow managed to get funding for even worse sequels. The point being, is that the idea of and Altered 2, doesn't sound so dumb, and considering that the film is surprisingly enjoyable, it might be interesting.

'Altered' follows the capture of an extraterrestrial being by a group of men. We learn within the opening minutes that the creature is responsible for their abduction and torture - as well as the death of their friend - several years earlier.

The majority of the movie is contained within the residence of their reluctant friend Wyatt (played beautifully by Adam Kaufman who captures his character's grief and rage at the things done to him) where the group slowly begins to fall apart whilst the extraterrestrial begins to do everything it can to escape...

I hadn't heard of this film before I rented it and was pleasantly surprised to find that, even with a small budget, this was a tense (due to most events taking place in one location) and very well written little movie that kept my attention throughout. The creature effects especially were well done and managed to convey how dangerous and frightening the extraterrestrial was.

I'd recommend this to other horror fans as a shining example of how smaller budget horror movies can sometimes be far more effective than multimillion dollar blockbuster horrors dripping in overcooked CGI and underwritten characters!

Going into Altered I was aware of a couple things. One being that it's directed by the dude that directed Blair Witch Project. And two being that the story revolves around aliens. Another factor why I wanted to see this is because I'm pretty fascinated by all things unknown and especially anything related to extraterrestrial life. Well when this movie was brought to my attention I made a self-note and marked it on my to-see list. And I'm thankful that I did. Cause what followed was a pretty cool flick, with gore, and one badass little alien.

Altered is about a group of guys who are looking for a little bit of revenge. They're looking for vengeance because years before they were all abducted and tortured by some Evil Aliens (good movie). Anyways, they manage to capture one little alien who for some reason was lurking in the woods. There could be a reason behind this....but I'm a little forgetful, sorry. Well this little alien isn't just you're little E.T. look-alike, he's one tiny, ripped up, angry little sh!t with sharp-ass teeth. I'm still wondering if he is or isn't part of the Verdant's IFSP (Intergalactic Federation of Sovereign Planets) maybe as some suped-up, fighter alien. Most probably not though. Anyways, they get there hands on the little bugger and take him hostage. Obviously things go awry and what follows is a cool little horror movie filled with some nice make-up and gore...and one mean little s.o.b. The movie obviously isn't a flawless piece of work...the acting is average, the script is average and the decision making is questionable. But, these weren't any of the reasons I rented Altered. I rented it to see a alien flick with gore and violence and hopefully some tense moments and I got those. So if you're like me and you want to catch a neat horror flick with aliens and gore, check out Altered. A surprising 8 outta 10.