Beyond the Sky (Blu-ray Review)
Chris Norton has been hearing about alien abductions his entire life but, in his gut, he knows they are not real. Setting out to disprove the alien abduction phenomenon once and for all, he attends a UFO convention to meet alleged abductees and reveal the truth behind their experiences. It is only when he meets Emily, who claims to have been abducted every seven years on her birthday, that Chris realizes there may be more to these claims than meets the eye. With Emily’s 28th birthday only days away, Chris helps her to uncover the truth as they come face to face with the reality that we are not alone.
Film 
Beyond the Sky is the latest film to tackle the subject of aliens and alien abduction. It has been a few years since we’ve seen one of these types of films. Now this is on the low budget film spectrum but after watching the trailer and reading up on it – I was up for the challenge!
Chris Norton (Ryan Carnes) has grown hearing about alien abductions all of his life. He has a deeper understanding of the subject since his abusive father claims that his mother didn’t leave the family but that she was abducted. We see this during Chris’ study of the videotape that he had on that fateful night when his mother left – he was a just a kid playing with the family’s video camera and caught a flash of light. This even and his internal resentment towards his father has led him to become an alien abduction debunker.
Chris travels the U.S. attending alien abduction conventions and interviews folks that say they have encountered aliens or that they have been taken aboard alien ships. Chris takes his trusty gear and trusty companion, Brent (Claude Duhamel), along for the ride. On one these treks into New Mexico, he meets the lovely Emily Reed (Jordan Hinson), who is a local artisan selling custom made dreamcatchers. Emily claims that she gets abducted every seven years on her birthday. This sets of Chris and his BS detector but the fact that Erin is pretty, and he seems actually curious, due to what he has seen and experienced make him go along for the ride. The kicker being that Emily’s 28th birthday is just days away – he’s compelled to stick around.
On the surface, Beyond the Sky may seem like a generic throwaway type of film, but it was pretty damned cool. The film runs 82-minutes and is almost played entirely in real-time. In fact, the film has a documentary feel to it but it’s shot like a feature instead of a real-life documentary, which is great. The settings, dialogue, and interactions never feel cheap or amateurish. I got many callbacks to The X-Files, which was neat. One of the things that I really liked about the film was that during one scene where Chris and Brent experience some weird happenings – they actually get to watch the footage of themselves experiencing the odd occurrences and proceed to freak out. On normal occasion, we’d probably get someone that would chime in and say that there was a “logical” reason for what had happened. Not here. I appreciated that.
Beyond the Sky stretches out its 1.5 million with some excellent sequences featuring top-tier CGI, which I cannot spoil. If you’re at all curious about aliens, alien abduction, etc., I would highly suggest watching Beyond the Sky. Your time commitment is negligible due to how short the running time is. Beyond the Sky is recommended.
Video
Encoding: AVC/MPEG-4
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Clarity/Detail: Outside of a few shots of stylistic “softness” and an occasional lens flare, Beyond the Sky looked great and was consistent throughout. Contrast and sharpness levels were stable.
Depth: There are several scenes towards the end of the film that highlight the scope of the film – this Blu-ray transfer looks flawless during those scenes of excitement.
Black Levels: There several scenes that take place at night – I did not detect any instances of crush in those scenes.
Color Reproduction: The color palette was very warm but that’s due to being filmed in very warm and hot places like Los Angeles, Arizona, and New Mexico.
Flesh Tones: Everyone looked great – nice and natural. I hope everyone wore sunscreen.
Noise/Artifacts: The film was clearly shot on digital but did have a very “film-like” appearance to it, which enhanced the overall mood.
Audio
Audio Format(s): English DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
Dynamics: Beyond the Sky has a demo-worthy lossless presentation. Wait until to you get to the final act – it will give your entire home theater a hefty workout!
Low Frequency Extension: The LFE subwoofer channel was given a ton of heavy lifting. The low-end was smooth, like butter, and free from distortion.
Surround Sound Presentation: The surround sound channels did a great job in. handling the many ambient effects and the various “other worldly” happenings. There is a “spooky” factor that the backstage sound-field did a great job in handling.
Dialogue Reproduction: Dialogue levels are clean, clear, and crisp. I was able to understand everyone perfectly. Dialogue clipping was not detected either.
Extras
The extras on this Blu-ray are paltry. There are two interviews included that run less than five minutes each. They don’t necessarily do the folks being interviewed any favors – it makes them sound a bit on the crazy side. Some of the footage used from these interviews was used in the film and there is a short after credit scene featuring Travis Walton.
- Interview with Travis Walton, alien abductee and author of Fire in the Sky (HD)
- Interview with Navajo artist at the international UFO Congress (HD)
Summary
Beyond the Sky was a pretty good and entertaining little-big film. The Blu-ray was packed with awesome video and an awesome lossless soundtrack. The extras were minimal, but everything else more than made up for those bumps in the road. Beyond the Sky will be available on Blu-ray & DVD November 6, 2018.
Beyond the Sky is released on
Blu-ray & DVD November 6, 2018
