Stratosphere
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Braden Kimble
A soldier must keep herself and her newly assembled crew alive after their drop pod deploys them onto a hostile distant planet in the middle of an ongoing interstellar war. The film captures the disorienting first minutes of combat as the squad scrambles to regroup and survive.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Stratosphere is exactly the kind of competent, well-executed sci-fi action that everyone agrees is solid—which is precisely why it leaves me cold. It knows what it is, does it well, and asks for nothing more; there's no formal risk, no premise that makes you uncomfortable, just Aliens filtered through a student budget with admirable discipline.
Kimble demonstrates real control of the action-drop vernacular—the sequence sits legitimately in the lineage of Cameron's playbook—and the practical effects work shows a filmmaker thinking seriously about how to ground sci-fi spectacle in tactile craft rather than VFX abstraction.
The decision to commit entirely to practical effects and in-camera blocking on a thesis budget is the spine of this film; Kimble could've hidden behind post, but instead every survival moment lands because you see the actual bodies, the actual rigging, the actual spatial logic of the drop—that choice does the heavy lifting that makes nine minutes feel urgent.
Reviews
Heavily inspired by the combat drop sequence from the 1986 film Aliens, with cinematography and gear that closely resemble the Alien saga and show Halo influence.
Festivals
- Sioux City International Film Festival 2022