OSIRIS (2025)

Genre: Action/Science Fiction
Director: William Kaufman
Cast: Max Martini, Brianna Hildebrand, LaMonica Garrett, Michael Irby, Linda Hamilton
Runtime: 1 hr 49 mins
Rating: NC16 (Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 31 July 2025

Synopsis: A team of Special Forces commandos are in the middle of an operation when they’re abducted by a mysterious spacecraft. When they wake up aboard the ship, they quickly discover they are being hunted by a merciless alien race. 

Movie Review:

Lest you may be wondering, ‘Osiris’ is the name of the Egyptian god of death and the underworld, whom mankind had inadvertently summoned when it had sent the Voyager 1 probe into space with the coordinates of our planet. Only well into the second act does the movie explain just how a mysterious alien spacecraft end up in our part of the galaxy, abducting humans as livestock and trophies – and thankfully, that bit of meaningful exposition is reserved for Linda Hamilton, a Soviet army tank commander who is mounting an insurgency against the enemy species.

‘Osiris’ is through and through a B-action movie, but taken in that respect – as well as its small budget – it is a minor achievement that will please undemanding fans of the genre. Working off his own script, William Kaufman – who is somewhat of a B-movie specialist – makes clear from the very barebones setup that his emphasis is on delivering a wall to wall shoot-em-up. Indeed, right from the very beginning, Kaufman draws us in with an intense shootout in modern-day Uzbekistan, where a group of US special forces, led by Kelly (Max Martini), confront scores of masked gunmen across narrow, sand-dusted alleyways and streets.

And then just like that, Kelly and his Marines find themselves taken onboard an UFO in the middle of their Uzbek skirmish. To help them – and the audience – make sense of what is going on, Kaufman drops in fellow abductee Ravi (Brianna Hildebrand), who explains the threat they are confronting. The rest is pretty much a rinse-repeat test of their survival skills over a number of action and fight scenes. As we soon find out, these aliens care only for the total annihilation and domination of our species, so the only operative here is to kill as many as you can and try not to get killed in the process.

To his credit, Kaufman keeps up a brisk pace from start to finish, so that ‘Osiris’ rarely outstays its welcome. Neither for that matter though does it manage any surprises, whether in terms of plotting or in terms of who dies in what sequence. What it does excel at though is at being a stunts- and practical effects-homage to ‘Alien’ and “Predator’, with the aliens’ makeup effects designed capably by the prolific Todd Masters (who was also responsible for the death makeup in ‘Final Destination: Bloodlines’). It isn’t pretty or elegant, but for this grungy sci-fi exercise, it more than does the job.

On their part, the ensemble cast do what they can with the little material they have. Reuniting with Kaufman after 2023’s ‘The Channel’, Martini makes for an appropriately gripping team leader, and manages some nice, quiet moments with Hildebrand in a rare display of humanity. You’d probably also recognise ‘Special Ops: Lioness’ star LaMonica Garrett, who does solid work here as Kelly’s second-in-command, not least for taking more than one for the team.

‘Osiris’ doesn’t make any new ground for the genre, nor pretend to be any more than a B- movie whose sole purpose is to deliver an ‘80s-styled science fiction actioner with appropriately spaced hand-to-hand combat and large-scale shootouts. You’d do well also to remember the limited budget the filmmakers had here, so if you’re prepared to take it for what it’s worth, ‘Osiris’ will turn out to be the meat-and-potatoes junk food that it had set out to be.

Movie Rating:

(Plenty of tense shoot-em-ups between humans and aliens, 'Osiris' wants to be nothing more)

Review by Gabriel Chong