Matthew witnesses his girlfriend Rachel vanish without a trace and becomes the prime suspect. A year later, Rachel returns to where she disappeared, but she has changed and Matthew fears for his life. The film follows Matthew recounting the story to his psychiatrist Dr. Charles Stewart at a mental institution, where he claims Rachel was taken by aliens. However, new memories cause Matthew to question if she truly was abducted or if he had something to do with her disappearance.

1. Shoreline Entertainment | 400 S. Beverly Drive, Suite 210 | Beverly Hills, CA 90212 USA
T +1 310 551 2060 | info@slefilms.com
Press Kit
Producers: Warner Davis, Jim Park
& Robert Benavides Jr.
Written/Directed by: Andy Palmer
& Robert Benavides Jr.

2. After his girlfriend vanishes without a trace, Matthew quickly goes from
witness to suspect. A year later, she returns to the very spot from which she
was taken, but not like she was before. The creature she becomes has
Matthew fearing for his life.
Log Line
PDe
A year and a half after Matthew last
heard Rachel scream his name on that
cold desert night, her disappearance still
haunts his dreams nightly. Only Rachel
didn't disappear, she was taken. Lifted
into the heavens right in front of his
eyes, Matthew is the only witness and
subsequently the only suspect.
He now spends his days walking the
dark white walls of the Briarview Mental
Institution, where it is Dr. Charles
Stewart’s job to find the answers to what
really happened to Rachel. But her
disappearance is not what he is
interested in; it is what happened to her
when she returned.
Desperate to help her, Matthew claims
that he refused to go to the authorities
for fear she would be taken from him
again, but soon it was too late and the
creature took over Rachel completely.
But one session is different, a
memory triggered By Dr. Stewart
causes Matthew’s fragile psyche to
further split into a series of flashes of
Rachel that he has never seen before.
A reality where she wasn’t taken at
all, a reality where the creature
inside her was cancer, a reality where
it was Matthew that killed her.
Synopsis
As the sessions unfold, Matthew tells
the story about the night he found her,
alive but naked and completely oblivious
to the year she was gone. Something
about her was different, first in her
demeanor and soon physical changes
began to take place, the metamorphous
of an alien creature living inside her,
growing from the inside out.
Convinced that these new memories are
being planted, Matthew must forge a
battle in his own mind to prove that
Rachel was taken and that she is not the
only one, and if he cannot escape
Briarview, he may be next.

3. A
lien Strain was a really unique and special project for me to be a part of,
and ultimately become one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had in
working on films. I came onto Alien Strain later in the process, after the
first cut had been done, and could see that there were elements that were
missing, and needed shaping, but at its core I felt what was there was a
really beautiful story about a man who is coming to grips with losing the love of his life
without ever telling her how he truly felt about her. In the end it didn’t matter whether
she was taken by aliens or passed away from cancer, his journey was dealing with that
regret.
Having spent most of my career editing reality television, I was used to seeing existing
footage, taking it and shaping it to really drive home the narrative that we want to tell,
and I approached finishing Alien Strain in a similar fashion. And I’m truly grateful to
Warner Davis, Jim Park, and the entire cast and crew for trusting me to come on board
for the shoot and take over the edit of the film. They really were an amazing group of
people to work with and it seemed like the end of the shoot happened in the blink of an
eye and we were back in post.
I love stories about one man wrongly accused, it is a very isolating and lonely existence to
be the only one that believes your story and with the scenes in Briarview with Dr.
Stewart we really wanted to create that isolated existence for Matthew. The idea being
that Briarview could very well be a real place, but it could also just represent Matthew’s
own mind, and he is being forced to confront the loss of Rachel.
-Andy Palmer
Alien Strain
Director’s Statement
I’m really proud of how “Alien Strain” turned out and I am so thankful to everyone
involved with the project and the time and love they put into it. It’s what makes making
films so unique among other professions, it takes the love and commitment of so many
people to create a singular idea, and I hope they are as proud of it as I am.

4. Cast/Filmmakers
Michael Finn as Matthew
Laura Gordon as Rachel
Rachelle DiMaria as Alicia
Michael Phenicie as Dr. Stewart
Directed by Andy Palmer
Produced by:
Warner Davis,
Jim Park
& Robert Benavides Jr.
CONTACT:
Shoreline Entertainment
400 S. Beverly Dr., Suite 210
Beverly Hills, CA 90212 USA
Tel. +1 310 551 2060 | info@slefilms.com
Jason Connery as Dr. Miles
Rolf Saxon as Sheriff Espinosa

5. MICHAEL FINN
MATTHEW
Michael Finn is proving to be quite the diverse talent in Hollywood. Finn's
introduction to the spotlight was as ‘Mike,’ an abusive and strung out boyfriend to
‘Maya,’ played by Rumer Willis in the film festival darling, “THE ODD WAY
HOME.” It also stars Chris Marquette, Brendan Sexton III and Veronica
Cartwright. The film enjoyed a theatrical run before being released on DVD.
Following that, Finn landed his first leading role, and gives an emotionally charged
performance as ‘Matthew,’ in the tense Sci-Fi thriller, “ALIEN STRAIN.” When
not acting, Finn is focused on writing, and has multiple scripts in various stages of
development and is slated to begin production on a project he co-created this fall.

6. LAURA GORDON
RACHEL
Australian actress Laura Gordon placed an equal emphasis, occupationally, on
film, television, and theater. Theatrically, she received extensive training and
professional experience at venues including the Australian Shakespeare Company
and the Redsitch Actors' Theater in productions including The House of Bernarda
Alba, The Year of the Family, Some Voices, and A Midsummer Night's Dream,
while television work focused (at least in the beginning) on Aussie series. Like
many a Hollywood ingénue, Gordon broke into American cinema as a scream
queen; her first two major projects were the gorefest "SAW V (2008)" and the
horror comedy remake "PIRANHA 3-D (2009)". She has guest starred in multiple
shows before starring in her most recent film, "EMBEDDED".

7. MICHAEL PHENICIE
DR. STEWART
Michael Phenicie, a San Diego native, discovered his
passion for the theatre after receiving a first folio addition
of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare” at the
age of 15. His studies led him to the State Finals of the
One Act competition for Mission Bay High School, where
they took first place. He continued his studies at San
Diego State University, under the tutelage of Paul Gregory
(husband of Janet Gaynor), receiving a BA in Theater,
with concentrations in Acting and Directing.
Michael’s theatre credits include “Lion in Winter” (at the
Actors Forum), “Boeing Boeing” (at the Beverly Hills
Playhouse), “Butterflies are Free” (at the Forum),
“Everything in the Garden” (at the Matrix), “Home
Fires” (at the Cast Theatre), and “Loss of Roses” (at the
Zephyr). In addition, his performance in “Natural
Affection” (at the Zephyr) earned him a William Inge
Award Nomination.
RACHELLE DIMARIA
ALICIA
Rachelle moved around a lot as a kid -- living in
Arizona, New Mexico, and a brief stint overseas. In an
effort to make friends, she became heavily involved in
drama. Her senior year of high school, Rachelle
attended the Arizona Thespian Conference and was
recruited to the theatre program at the University of
Northern Colorado where she studied for three years.
Since moving to L.A., Rachelle has been diligently
pursuing "the craft", with several feature films shot in
the last year, including Find Me, Alien Strain, and
Courting Chaos. Her next film Welcome to Kain,
which she wrote and will star in, begins shooting in
August.
He has worked extensively in Film and Television. Over the years, he has guest starred or
recurred on hit shows such as Alias, The Shield, Judging Amy, The Guardian, Angel, Coach,
The Pretender, Knots Landing and Roseanne. He recurred on the final season of Showtime’s
hit series The L Word. He has had the pleasure of working with many great actors, such as
Faye Dunaway in the film Ghosts Never Sleep, Julie Harris on Knots Landing, Opposite
Wesley Snipes in Art of War II, and Kaley Cuoco in the Lifetime movie To be Fat like Me.

8. ROLPH SAXON
JASON CONNERY
SHERIFF ESPINOSA
Rolf was born at Fort Belvoir in Alexandria, Virginia.
When his father left the army, the family moved
permanently to California, eventually settling in the San
Francisco Bay Area. After being in the first class of ACT's
Young Conservatory, he worked with the embryonic Cal
Shakes, was a founder member of the Berkeley Mime
Troupe. Saxon auditioned for and was accepted to the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where he
eventually joined the Omphalos Street Theatre Company
DR. MILES
Jason Connery has appeared in over 30 films, television
movies and series, combined, since his breakthrough role as
"Robin Hood" in the UK television series Robin Hood (1984)
in 1985. The son of Sean Connery and Diane Cilento,
Connery grew up in London and Scotland. He attended
boarding school at Somerset, where he received a half-
scholarship for swimming and held the under-16 freestyle
record for the south of England. Connery's interest in acting
as a performer and director. Upon graduating he was awarded the Gold Medal and
presented to the Prince of Wales at the Guildhall’s centenary celebrations.
He now divides his time between the USA and UK, working in film (MISSION
IMPOSSIBLE, ENTRAPMENT, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN), Television (for the BBC and
many other UK TV companies including starring roles in three series and many movies)
and theatre. This year work will finish on the second installment of the fifth BROKEN
SWORD and begin on the new Tom Hanks project, HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING, THE
WOMAN IN GOLD directed by Simon Curtis and the independent AUGUST FALLS with
Sam Hancock again at the helm. 2014 will also see the release of the independent sci-fi
thriller, ALIEN STRAIN as well as his feature directorial debut, AFTER EVER AFTER.
developed while studying at the Gordonstoun School for Boys in the north of Scotland.
Connery had starring roles in feature films including Return of the Thief of Baghdad
(1999), Private Moments (2005), Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell (2001), Requiem
(2001), Shanghai Noon (2000), Bullet to Beijing (1995), Urban Ghost Story (1998) and
Macbeth (1997). He has also starred in television movies (Merlin (1998) and The Secret
Life of Ian Fleming (1990)) and series (Smallville (2001), Liberty's Kids: Est. 1776 (2002)
and Shoebox Zoo (2004)).

9. ANDY PALMER
Writer/Director
Andy Palmer is an award winning film and television
director/producer/editor. Andy has directed the feature films
“Find Me,” which has been acquired by Gravitas Ventures
and World Wide Film Entertainment for both domestic and
international release, and “Alien Strain” for Shoreline
Entertainment.
He is currently in pre-production on a horror/thriller titled “Welcome to Kain” which
begins production in August 2014. In addition he has also edited the films, “Andre the
Butcher”, and the multiple award winning documentary, “Chasing the Horizon”.
In 2009 he directed over 20 short films for the sketch comedy group, ‘Man in the Van’
and in 2011 he produced the award winning web series “God Rewards the Fearless”
and the recently released web series “Clued-Less” Andy is an alumni of the Avid
Feature Film School for Editing, and has a degree in Advertising and Television
Production from Northern Arizona University.
WARNER DAVISProducer
Warner Davis’s passion for film brought him to Los Angeles
from college in Louisiana. He enrolled at California Lutheran
University to obtain his MBA. While attending school, he began
working for MGM Studios in theatrical business affairs. His
tenure at MGM Studios has given him a thorough
understanding of domestic and foreign distribution for films
being released theatrically and other ancillary markets.
He interned for After Dark Films during the filming of Seconds Apart, giving him his
first experience on how a film set operates. His first produced project was a short film
entitled My Dear, which was accepted into the Palm Springs Short Festival and L.A.
Short Festival. Following My Dear, he produced his first feature film entitled Awaken,
starring Corey Sevier and Jordan Ladd which is now available on DVD and Video On
Demand. Since Awaken, he has produced several feature films, and has several in
preproduction.

10. Production Notes
Dangers of the Stick Shift
The Desert Cold
Often times when reading the script as a producer, you divvy things up by how difficult or easy it is to
make the words on the page become a reality. And often times it is the things that seem so easy to
attain, that prove to be the most difficult to make work. On day three, we learned the importance of
having the right picture car. In the scene, Alicia (Rachelle DiMaria) was supposed to hop in her Jeep
and drive to Matthew’s house to warn him about Rachel. Little did we know, Rachelle cannot drive a
stick shift. It took a very fast crash course and around 15 takes before she got one right. For the rest of
the film, we tried to shoot wide shots so that someone else could drive the jeep. She was such a trooper
for doing it over and over again, and we sure as heck burned through a few memory cards that day.
Make-Up
Creating the Alien design took months to prep. As Rachel transforms into an Alien,
Cale Thomas created 4 stages before the final transformation. While shooting, it was a
constant battle to remember what stage she had to be in each time. However it was
that struggle and various stages of make-up that also lead to introducing the cancer
storyline that was not featured in the original script. Is she really transforming into an
Alien, or is she dying of cancer and the alien story was all a facade? This new story
line helped create a new layer to the film that was not there at first. We find that often
time in making films it is the happy accidents that lead to the best parts of the film.
The film was shot in the desert town of Barstow in Southern California. As we pepped for
the shoot, our main concern was the heat. We did all we could to provide shade, fans,
etc…What we did not prep for was the cold. We had several night scenes in which Rachel
(Laura Gordon) was in full makeup as an Alien. Since she couldn’t wear anything under
or over the makeup, we had to keep a car running all night for her to warm up in after
each take. Not realizing at the time, the seat slowly starting to turn a shade of blue, a
permanent reminder of the joys of independent filmmaking.
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11. TECHNICAL
DETAILS
Camera - CANON C300 & RED EPIC
Year Completed - 2014
Exact Runtime - 85 Minutes
Original Aspect Ratio - 235 : 1
Language - English