It’s not Alien, but Bravo squad’s tangle with a mucus-coated scarer will keep you from dozing off after the pub
Oscars are probably not on the cards, but this is a decently mounted creature feature by Canadian director Matthew Ninaber, which has enough mucus-coated hijinks to make it worth 90 post-pub minutes. A team of mercenaries are airlifted into the country of “Bosvania” to storm a bioresearch compound and rescue a scientist who appears to be the sole remaining staff member. Nice guy Beckett (Jeremy Ninaber) and trash-talking sniper Marshall (Ethan Mitchell) are on Bravo squad, tasked with shielding Alpha from a unit of local militia in the surrounding woods. But “shit” goes south, and the pair are forced to take refuge inside, where something has been painting the walls a nice shade of scarlet.
Some weedy-looking airstrikes aside, Death Valley wears its low budget well, with the forest firefights impressively punchy and – a bonus in action scenes these days – keeping a good sense of spatial awareness. Ninaber also handles the subsequent bunker crawl briskly: the duo locate stricken boffin Chloe (Kristen Kaster), navigate corridors with the flickering lighting standard in failing facilities, and tiptoe around her infected colleagues and a head monster that is like a Lord of the Rings orc wearing its brains on the outside.