UFO Movies

            I know there are a number of good books on and about UFOs in the marketplace, including such titles as “Shoot Them Down” and “UFO Warminster”, as well as others on Filament Book Club. And let’s not forget Bill and Nancy’s outstanding UFO Magazine! All are great books to read. There are also some very good sci-fi novels on Filament, so you really don’t have to go elsewhere to find something good to read. However, once in a great while, I get a little lazy and am in the mood to watch a movie. Just, as I’m sure, all of us are.

Okay, that said, I recently stopped at the video store to rent something to watch on a slow night this past week, and to my surprise, I found  “Night Skies”, a new UFO flick, and without hesitation I rented the thing hoping for a good UFO movie after all the horror stuff that’s been showing at the theaters. Before I say anything about this cinema, let me ask the members of Filament when the last good UFO movie was that they watched? And what was the title?

            Two blockbusters that quickly come to mind are “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind” and “Hanger 18”, both with great actors, good plots, and fantastic special effects. After that, we may have to go back to the 1950s for such classics as, “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, “This Island Earth”, “The Man From Planet X” (though I’m not sure just how much of a UFO film that was), and the sci-fi/horror classic, “The Thing From Another World” with James Arness as the pilot of the flying saucer that crashes in Alaska (or was that the North Pole?). However, my problem with this last one, they had Arness growling and grunting like a monster. Remember, one sign of intelligence is a spoken and written language. In order to pilot a flying saucer, there had to be some intelligence in the creature. Instead, this monster just knocked big chunks of wood out of doors with the thorns on his hands and growled a lot, scaring all of the kids who went to see the movie at the time. At least, with the “man” from Planet X, “he” had a language and was intelligent. We might even classify the original “War of the Worlds” as a good UFO movie, although it was really an alien invasion film, and had nothing to do with UFOs. But I’m stretching the rules a little as I search for “good” UFO movies. There just aren’t many out there that I am aware of.

            Okay, back to “Night Skies”. The hype claimed this was a true story based on the Phoenix lights of several years back. We all remember those strange lights that appeared in the skies over Phoenix, that the government claims were flares dropped by the air national guard. Uh huh. That incident! Well, my interest was instantly peaked, and if this was based on the truth, I had to see this movie. I rented it and rushed home and put it in the DVD player, popped some popcorn, and set back to watch “the truth” play out on the screen.

            Well, the “truth” may be out there, but it wasn’t in this movie!

            After an hour and a half, or whatever the length was, I was wishing I could get my money back! This movie was just another dumb teenager slasher flick, using UFOs and aliens as the bad guys instead of Freddie or Jason. You know the type. I wish someone had warned me about this movie before I laid down good money to see it.

            Please, when is Hollywood going to give us another “Close Encounters Of The Third Kind”? These mindless horror flicks are driving me crazy. Thankfully, we have The History Channel and the National Geographic Network that shows UFO research programs that are pretty decent. I even catch our boss, Bill Birnes on many of the episodes. And I’m about ready to disconnect from the Sci-Fi channel. For the life of me, I continue to watch their sci-fi movies, and I don’t know why! I’ll see something that sounds interesting in the listing and turn it on, only to watch about thirty minutes of the movie before I become disgusted and turn it off. Don’t they have any decent writers any more? There doesn’t seem to be any imagination to the stories being filmed, and they all play to the same old tired formula of horror and slash, cut and dismember Where’s the sci-fi?

            I sure wish there was something to watch. For now, I think I’ll stick to reading the great books on Filament, and watching The History Channel for studies on UFOs. Readers, do you have any suggestions? What good UFO movie did you last see? Comments, anyone?

Tom Johnson

June 1, 2007