I also liked how the male character of Dr. Showing the scientist’s personal lives and how the government agents literally demand that they drop what they are doing and come with them helps humanize the characters to a degree. The isolated lab, which is hidden beneath what looks to be just an ordinary farmhouse and shed, is really cool and director Robert Wise’s use of the split-screen during the search of the town is both flashy and slick. I enjoyed seeing all of the decontamination procedures that the crew is forced to go through before they are even allowed to begin their investigation. No bubblegum action, scary monsters, or any other form of over-the-top dramatics get added instead it’s on a ‘thinking man’s level’ with an extraordinary attention to detail. One of the major selling points of this film is the fact that it keeps everything within the realm of ‘realistic sci-fi’. It is here after close examination that they are able to observe the virus, which appears as small green dots on the satellite, but they fail to realize that this virus can also mutate and presents an even greater risk to them in the lab. They bring these two people along with the remnants of the satellite back to a secret Nevada lab known as Wildfire that’s buried deep below the ground. Dan Hill (James Olson) go to the town to investigate and find that the only survivors are a wino (George Mitchell) and a six-month-old baby.
When a satellite returns to earth it brings back a mysterious virus that ends up killing all the residents of a town where it lands.
#ANDROMEDA STRAIN MOVIE CAME OUT FOR FREE#
The Andromeda Strain streaming for free right now on Tubi in the U.S.4-Word Review: Isolating a dangerous virus.
The film uses many concepts and narrative elements that we’ve seen before in plenty of other sci-fi films, but it combines them in a genuinely unique way that makes it well-worth seeking out. That’s a shame, considering just how interesting and singular of an experience it is. The Andromeda Strain isn’t talked about a lot these days, and it’s beginning to feel like a bit of a forgotten gem. And the film’s final, ominous moments only drive those themes home. As we emerge from 2020, The Andromeda Strain’s warnings about society’s struggle with handling dangerous biological developments on a mass scale remain as relevant and compelling as ever. The film isn’t an empty exercise in tension and paranoia. As a result, the film feels more akin to some of Wise’s darker outings as a director - especially the 1963 horror classic The Haunting. While Wise remains highly capable of communicating scale throughout the film, it’s his ability to create tension and atmosphere that’s most notable in The Andromeda Strain. Alex Garland’s Annihilation achieved a similar effect, and that thematic richness is a large part of what makes The Andromeda Strain so effective.ĭirector Robert Wise may be most well-known for directing sweeping Hollywood musicals like The Sound of Music and West Side Story, but he’s tapping into a different kind of skillset in The Andromeda Strain. Watching The Andromeda Strain, you begin to feel like the film’s characters are fighting an uphill battle, not against alien invaders but against nature itself. While it doesn’t ever depict any of the kind of giant Lovecraftian enemies typically associated with cosmic horror, it does tap into the feeling of helplessness that’s integral to that genre.
In that sense, The Andromeda Strain sometimes feels more like a cosmic horror film than it does an alien invasion thriller. That feeling of claustrophobia also helps to heighten the film’s unshakable sense of dread, which escalates as its central team of scientists learn about the alien organism. The film takes place primarily within the confines of a sealed-off underground facility - one designed to be destroyed the moment it looks like the alien pathogen might escape.īy keeping its locations limited, The Andromeda Strain achieves a claustrophobic effect that only grows more effective as the film continues. Based on a 1969 novel of the same name by sci-fi icon Michael Crichton, The Andromeda Strain focuses on efforts by a group of scientists to contain and understand a dangerous extraterrestrial organism that’s made its way to Earth.