Netflix movie Blasted is about five dudes at a weekend bachelor party, but the title doesn’t refer to what happens when they do too many tequila shots. No, this is a sci-fi flick offering us ray guns and aliens, running and shooting, and jokes, in what is hopefully a high-larious mashup of genres. A real-life mystery – the not-quite-explained floating lights often seen in Norway’s Hessdalen valley – is the basis of a story about doofuses stumbling over an alien invasion; thankfully, two of those doofuses are former laser tag champions, surely a heretofore impractical skill that can finally be put to good use.
The Gist: HESSDALEN: a remote woodsy area in central Norway. Not much happens there, except the strange phenomena of floating green light-globs that locals theorize are of extraterrestrial origin – or maybe there’s a totally logical scientific explanation for it? The movie gives us an answer right away, as we see the globs take over the brains of a scientist and a YouTuber. Cut to: Sebastian (Axel Boyum), a small-time hedge-fund manager nervously preparing a presentation.
His buddies Pelle (Eirik Hallert), a weirdo in goofy clothes, and Audun (Mathias Luppichini), a weirdo in a tidy suit, interrupt to tell him they’re throwing a surprise bachelor party for him. They’ll hang out in a cabin in Hessdalen and get wild and crazy playing board games! I guess this is what happens when you’re 5,000 miles from Vegas, and too many bachelor-party movies have been set in Vegas.