The movie is set during a civil war in Moldova, where invisible creatures kill anyone who crosses their path. I’ve watched it countless times because of its unique and thrilling battle scenes. The film premiered worldwide on Netflix on December 9, 2016. On February 1, 2017, Netflix released a prequel graphic novel titled Spectral: Ghosts of War, available digitally through ComiXology.
DARPA researcher Mark Clyne is dispatched to a U.S. military airbase on the outskirts of Chișinău to assess his inventions: a series of hyperspectral imaging goggles provided to the U.S. Army Special Forces. These forces, led by Army General James Orland, are secretly aiding the Moldovan government in an ongoing civil war against insurgents from the previous regime. Clyne is also tasked with investigating the death of Delta Force Sergeant Davis, whose hyperspectral goggles, along with those of several other operators, recorded an unidentified entity that kills almost instantly. While signal intelligence operations dismissed the recordings as interference, Clyne believes the sightings are genuine. Conversely, CIA Case Officer Fran Madison suspects the sightings are of local insurgents using advanced active camouflage and has been instructed by her superiors to acquire any samples of this cloaking technology.
General Orland assigns both Clyne and Madison to a Delta Force team led by Major Sessions on a mission to extract their missing Utah team in Durletsi. Upon arrival, they find Comstock, one of the few survivors from the Utah team. The team soon faces a fierce assault by the invisible entities, which are immune to small arms fire and explosives. Although the operators manage to escape, their vehicles are overturned by a landmine, killing Comstock and leaving the team stranded.
The group takes refuge in an abandoned factory where they meet Chen, another surviving Utah team member, and two Moldovan siblings, Sari and Bogdan. Their late father had scattered iron filings around the factory to protect them from the entities, known locally as "Aratare." The team establishes radio contact with the airbase and arranges for extraction. However, they are forced to leave the factory on foot when the entities bypass the filings and surround the area. Armed with improvised explosive devices and grenades filled with iron filings, the group heads for an alternate extraction point at an abandoned plaza. They reach the landing zone and narrowly escape, but many soldiers sent to secure the area are killed, including Sari's brother, Bogdan.
The Delta Force group is redirected to a civilian bunker controlled by the Moldovan government after their airbase is overrun by the entities. Using information provided by Sari, Clyne deduces that the apparitions are likely composed of Bose-Einstein condensate, which prevents them from passing through iron shavings and ceramic materials. This explains how Comstock survived and why the entities cannot penetrate ceramic tank armor plating. Overnight, Clyne works with Orland and the surviving military engineers to construct ceramic-armored suits and makeshift pulse weapons capable of breaking down the condensate entities. The next morning, the remaining Delta operators leave the bunker for the Masrov power plant, which Clyne believes generates the power necessary for the condensate to form and is the origin of the entity attacks.
While soldiers create a diversionary attack on the roof of the power plant, Clyne and Madison descend into an underground laboratory beneath the facility. Here, they make a startling discovery: scientists working for the former regime had manufactured the condensate entities as replicas of deceased human test subjects, whose neural networks were connected to a central machine keeping the condensate copies operational. The entities escaped when the facility was damaged during the civil war, leading to the current crisis. As the battle above threatens to release the remaining condensate entities, Clyne activates the failsafe system, deactivating the condensate and granting peace to the human remains connected to the machine.
With the entities eradicated, the U.S. and allied Moldovan forces resumed their efforts to secure the city from the insurgents. Meanwhile, the Department of Defense contemplates reverse engineering the condensate machine for potential wartime applications. Clyne bids farewell to Orland, Sari, and Madison before being airlifted back home. When I finished watching this movie, I only dreamed that it would have a Part 2.