EJECTA: yet another entry in the mini-budget WTF's-happening apocalyptic sci-fi thriller genre

Actor Julian Richings has an amazing face. It is just plain memorable. And strange. You can't look away from it. Mr. Richings, shown below, is quite an asset to the new ultra-mini-budget sci-fi/sort-of-thriller, EJECTA, and thank god he's the star of the film because I think it would be something less were it not for the amazing creep factor this actor, shown below, possesses. As written by Tony Burgess and directed by Chad Archibald and Matt Wiele, and as these mini-budgeted would-be sci-fi movies go -- the last such we covered here was the nearly unwatchable Hangar 10 -- this one is at least an improvement over the usual found-footage or just-point-the-video-camera-and-shoot hogwash. Ejecta is not awful. The movie has its moments.

Most of these involve Mr. Richings, above, who plays some kind of seer who has been gifted/contaminated with knowledge/insight that he would dearly love not to possess. In fact, he is possessed, and this appears to be killing him. Mr. Richings is quite convincing as this poor, used-up schmuck, and so are the actors  Lisa Houle (below) and Mark Gibson, who play the very nasty government doctor and agent bent on torturing this poor soul to learn what he knows. These scenes come awfully close to torture porn, as dispensed by a woman.

You can't watch much of this torture without having Guantanamo and AbuGhraib (and maybe, currently, the exploits of ISIS) cross your mind again and again. And since it is our government doing the nasty stuff, you won't much care what happens to these entitled and insufferable assholes. The plot -- of which there ain't much -- involves possible alien arrival (see below) and adbuction, something known as "mass ejections" (whatever that means), and maybe Armageddon, too. The special effects, when they finally arrive, are at least as effective as most of the stuff in the ridiculous Interstellar -- at probably 1/10,000 the budget.

However, when all is said and done (too many times, at that: the movie is far too repetitive), it comes down to the usual fright tactics of dropping a bunch of "hints," amidst the special effects, torture and noise, and hoping we'll be somehow scared out of our wits. Good luck. Overall, I was finally more annoyed than frightened, but I must admit that Ejecta (not a very good title) occasionally got to me, thanks mostly to the performances of  Mr. Richings and Ms Houle.

The movie -- from IFC Midnight and running a little long, even at only 87 minutes -- opens today as the midnight show at Manhattan's IFC Center. Elsewhere? Don't know, but as it opens simultaneously on VOD, aficionados across the country will have the chance to view it, too.

Brian Horiuchi's unsettling end-of-the-world tale, PARTS PER BILLION, goes straight to Blu-ray

There are pretty much two kinds of end-of-the-world movies. One type is faux, since the world contin-ues, as in the worthwhile Deep Impact or the piss-poor Armageddon. The other version is not afraid to give us the real thing, though this kind of film doesn't come along all that often -- and is never of the blockbuster variety (the hoi polloi demands feel-good). The best of the actual end-of-the-world lot would be Don Mc Kellar's Last Night from 1998, but 2012 brought us another fine example in David Mackenzie's Perfect Sense. Now there's a new one to add to this brief list: PARTS PER BILLION by Brian Horiuchi (below), his first film as writer/director.

While not nearly up to the level of the other two films on my short list, Parts Per Billion is good enough to qualify as a quality product. It's well written, directed and especially acted by the eight excellent performers who play the three couples, the sister and the best friend who comprise the fine ensemble. Mr. Horiuchi, shown at right, takes our current and ever widening revolutions, wars and general anarchy in the mid-east and leaps off from the chemical warfare supposedly used of late by Syria, and from this sort of behavior extrapolates a new kind of pathogen released into the air via chemical warfare. Airborne, it is soon wiping out entire populations. Once it crosses the Atlantic, goodbye USA.

Parts Per Billion concentrates on just three couples, one very young (Teresa Palmer and Penn Badgley, above, right); one approaching middle age (Rosario Dawson and Josh Hartnett, above, center), and one old (Gena Rowlands and Frank Langella, above, left); the Badgley's character's sister (Alexis Bledel, below, who doubles as nurse to Langella and Rowlands); and the Hartnett's character's best friend (the excellent Hill Harper).

Horiuchi tends to bury his exposition well enough so that it tends to pop out only when his characters might actually be talking about that particular subject. He also uses flashbacks judiciously to fill us in on how these people come to be in the position they now find themselves.

The three couples are deeply in love, though not, it seems without having had some bumps along the way. The true beauty of this film is how we come to share their love and believe in it. "What are the important things?" one character asks during the course of the film. Parts Per Billion forces this question upon us time and again in scenes that include Hartnett, a young boy and the boy's father in the park; Badgley and Palmer in a truly lovely proposal scene; and Langella facing down his past behavior and terrible decisions with grit and grace.

Horiuchi's writing is better than this genre usually offers: smart but unshowy and always about things. "This is how wars start," notes one character, " because of the different ways people keep stuff in their cupboards!" When you actually see this moment, that line seems both amusing and sensible.

The filmmaker does not back away from the darkest side of things, either. He spares us the blood and gore but takes us to the brink, allowing us to view (or hear) as some of the characters meet their demise. There's also humour along the way, as well as music, lovemaking and food. As we see our civilization closing down via these eight characters, it becomes clear that Mr Horiuchi has given us an end-of-the-world movie that can actually bear the weight of its subject.

Parts Per Billion -- from Millennium Entertainment and running 102 minutes -- hits the street on DVD and Blu-ray tomorrow, Tuesday June 3 -- for sale or rental. Apparently Netflix hasn't even ordered the film yet (you can "save" it to your queue), but Amazon has it on disc and streaming, the latter via its Instant Video.