Strange Chronicle

Gareth Welsh

English 102 C12

Professor Steven hope

Film Analysis Essay

Strange Chronicle

        In a small town in the state of Ohio, a young boy Joe Lamb tries to move on with his life after his beloved mother died in an accident. His father, a deputy is becoming more distant from his only child. So, Joe satisfies his time by helping his best mate Charles to create a movie for a film festival. When a huge military train lost control and triggers a force from another world onto this defenseless small town. Joe and his friends entered an adventure of a lifetime to reveal the truth about this catastrophic incident. An interesting movie about conflicts between two children and their fathers, a lonely alien who wants to do anything to leave the planet, and most importantly about how people should learn to let go of a loss.

        A fourteen year old lad Joe Lamb loses his mother in a factory accident. Joe’s sufferings are symbolized by a necklace his dad gave to his mother the day he was born. Joe and his father seems like they don’t get along well. Joe said to his dad on the film “We're not clear! You and I aren't clear about anything! We couldn't be less clear!” Apparently, the death of his mother made them spread form one another.  Joe’s father had gone too far when he told him not hang out with his crush Alice anymore. Which made things a lot worse between the two. On the other hand, Alice and Joe seems to get along they like and understand each other. However both their fathers do not want them to see each other anymore. In one of the scenes, Alice went to Joe’s place to see him, he let her come in through the window and they started watching a video about Joe’s mother. Alice started crying and told Joe that it was her father’s fault his mother died, he supposed to go to work that day. However, him being an alcoholic, he got drunk and missed his shift, so Joe’s mom took his spot instead and got killed. And that explains why both fathers don’t want the children to see each other.

        It all starts when Joe and his friends try to make a movie of themselves using a super 8 camera, a zombie movie. While they were filming their movie, a big train passes by and crashes right in front of their eyes. What these children don’t realize is that the train was a military train and it carries a threat. If fact it carries an Alien that the government had found. And for years, they kept it against its will, clearly to use it as a weapon. So, the Alien and who’d blame it, it began to see humans as a threat. And after that train wreck, the alien escapes and began to kill people and anything that comes in its way. Turns out after that, all what that creature wanted is to go home.

        The government refuses to let go of the alien, which leads to a disaster. A path of destruction and too many innocent people died just so the alien could escape the military assault and the planet Earth. Clearly, the humans were no match against this powerful creature. So, all this catastrophe could have been prevented if the army simply let go of the alien. It’s that simple. When Alice has been caught by the alien and then Joe comes and rescue her, she told him that the alien was scared and alone, with no family and it wants to go home. At this scene, Joe has been also been caught by the alien and almost been killed, but instead he stood up and confronted the beast. When it was about to kill him, Joe shouted: “I know bad things happen, but you can still live.” The alien looked at Joe in a peaceful way and let him live and walked away.