By Todd Garbarini
Varo
Venturi's Day 6 is another genre
outing that has made its rounds under different titles: Alien Exorcism (U.S.), Alien
Encounter (U.K.), 5 Giorni Sulla
Terra (Italy), Eirian-Baasasu-Ekusoshituto
(Japan), and 6 Days on Earth. Now out on DVD from One 7 Movies, Day 6 introduces a story that is
intriguing but tests the audiences' patience by inundating them with so much
information that it becomes a bit much to follow. Although spoken (and apparently also dubbed)
in English, there are no subtitles, and their absence is heavily felt. In a nutshell, the film is a fair attempt of
mixing aliens with evil spirits. Dr.
Davide Piso (Massimo Poggio) is a scientist who has dedicated his life's work
to the study of alien abductions. You
would think that he would have taken notes from Whitley Strieber's 1987 book on
the subject, Communion, as he speaks
with and studies people who claim to have been abducted. He is also interested in how these abductions
affect the person and their soul. The
aliens themselves look like they stepped off the cover of that best-selling
book.
After
a lecture that he administers on the subject, he is approached by Saturnia
(pronounced "sa-TURN-yah" and played by Laura Glavin), a woman half
his age who lets her sexual attraction to him be known. She asks him for help as she feels possessed
by some other form of life (couldn’t it just be PMS?) He soon discovers that an alien named Hexabor
of Ur is possessing her and, according to the Day 6 website (the film's official website), Hexabor of Ur is
"an alien entity coming from ancient ages, from the site of Ur, according
to the Bible the Abraham's city of birth. A regal and disdainful personality, with a sexual androgynous nature, s/he
believes to be the elected one, destined to entirely possess a human
'container'…" Loosely translated
form Italian, I am guessing. Dr. Piso
has developed a method of getting abductees to relive their experience of being
abducted by hypnotizing them in order to "exorcise" the alien that
has possessed them so to speak. He
employs this technique on Saturnia but soon learns that she cannot come out of
the hypnotic state, and this permits the Hexabor of Ur to flourish and attempt
to attack mankind. Desperate, Dr. Piso
keeps Saturnia sedated so that he can work to find a solution to get her out of
the hypnotic state.
The
film has received more than its fair share of negative reviews, but I would say
give it a chance. It's by no means a
great film, but it is very ambitious for the subject matter which attempts to
mix alien abduction with soul possession and does so nicely. I can't say that I have seen this type of
story before. Laura Glavin is quite good
as Saturnia. Ms. Glavin has been
appearing in the Italian television series Don Matteo since 2009 and is best
known to audiences for her work on that show. Massimo Poggio is also good as Dr. Piso, however this being an Italian
film, all the dialog is dubbed and sounds read from a script. Think Dario Argento. Just about all the dialogue is obviously
looped, but there is a fairly good car chase halfway through the film. It ain't To
Live and Die in L.A. (then again, what is?), but it's decent.
The
film was shot digitally and the lack of subtitles is puzzling. According to the end credits, shooting took
place in April 2009 (this is information that I have never seen disclosed in a
film credit before), so we are seeing this film nearly six years following its
production.
There are two extras on the disc. The first is a 56-minute “documentary†called Sci Real which is conducted in both
Italian (with English subtitles) and in English, and purports to be a
documentary on the phenomenon depicted in the film. The second is the
theatrical trailer.
I would have preferred the film to be in
spoken Italian with English subtitles. Perhaps a future Blu-ray release will contain just that.
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