Beyond The Trek (2017) Movie Review

If there’s one thing that sci-fi and horror movies often try to do, it’s to examine some aspect of humanity, and that aspect is typically a frailty or flaw. This is what writer/director Ian Truitner has done with his latest sci-fi tale, Beyond the Trek (originally titled, Teleios).

To weave this story of human faults, Truitner sets the stage in space, as well as placing it far into the future. This future has seen huge advancements in technology (obviously since we’re traveling to deep space) and in human genetics. However, our climate change has progressed and the planet being rendered uninhabitable is all but imminent. So, to fix the problem, we send a deep space mining vessel, the Titan, to another planet to extract a mysterious substance that’s supposed to fix our problem.

We don’t get to see any of that mission though, and neither do we get to see what happened to the crew, which is suspected of going nuts and killing off one another. We do, however, get to see the attempted rescue mission, which takes place after two years of losing contact with Titan.

The rescue team is comprised of five genetically engineered “perfect” humans, called GCs, who aren’t supposed to have any flaws. When they get to Titan, they find that there is one survivor who appears to have gone insane, which makes it difficult to get any information out of him. And as time goes on, and the GCs unexpectedly start to lose patience, things start going wrong, more specifically, their faults start to show in unique ways per individual. If you ask me, however, they each exhibited their own self-righteous, arrogant faults from the start of the movie.

The GCs don’t exhibit the the “seven deadly sins,” but there is enough variety here to cause havoc. Then we have to wonder if anyone will survive this misbehavior.

The Verdict:

By Truitner’s own admission, Beyond the Trek isn’t a special effects tour de force. The strength of this movie is in the story, and if you’re prepared to sit and think a bit, then you don’t want to miss this. Even better, after watching this movie, it sticks with you as you ponder some existential questions. So, if you like classic sci-fi, such as The Day the Earth Stood Still, you’ll probably like Beyond the Trek.

Rock Hard \m/