Customer Reviews

Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It started out as your normal Thanksgiving family get-together: Mom's drinking like a lush, her sons are bickering over who's to blame for Mom's descent into alcoholism, an annoying little girl is torturing everyone by playing Chopsticks on the piano, everyone's telling the boy with the video camera to stop filming, and then a sister shows up late (as usual) - only this time with a black boyfriend. Yep, just another joyous holiday meal with the whole family. Until, that is, aliens show up and launch an attack on the house.

Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County is an incredibly good film, even now when such realistic "documentaries" are no longer a novelty. This film actually preceded The Blair Witch Project, which I only mention because this film features a Blair Witch confessional-type scene close to the end. The filmmakers (principally, Dean Alioto) obviously tried to tell this story in as realistic a manner as possible - and they really pulled the whole thing off amazingly well. The film is shot entirely on home video tape, in a series of extended scenes, thus giving it an authentic amateur feel, and the limits of home video technology make the aliens appear genuinely real because you never get a clear shot of them. It's funny how an exceedingly low-budget film like this can succeed so well when so many of Hollywood's fancy, CGI-enhanced, $100 million films crash and burn because they can't establish a personal connection with viewers. This little film draws you in and makes you a silent observer of the entire scene going on around you throughout this one harrowing night. The increasing levels of hysteria start to get annoying after a while, but it's all quite believable.

So Tommie's filming the Thanksgiving celebration on his new camera when, just as the turkey is about to hit the plates, there's a sudden streak of "lightning" and the power goes off. The three brothers go outside to check the fuse box and find it pretty much melted. Then they spot something strange out in one of the fields, which turns out to look a heck of a lot like a UFO - they can't believe their eyes when they spot two aliens walking out and cutting into a dead cow. Unfortunately, they make so much noise that the aliens spot them and quickly shoot some kind of red laser beam at them. They rush back into the house in a panic, insisting that the family get the hell out of there as quickly as possible - only to be met with ridicule and disbelief by all of the others (even though one of them has suffered serious burns on one hand). Everyone will be a believer before this night is through, however.

This whole film really is expertly done. There are really just a minimum of special effects (such as a sparking transformer or a red light pointer zooming around inside the darkened house), but they all work like gangbusters. Throw those into the mix with the increasing sense of panic among the family members, and you can't help but feel tension - if not fear - like you wouldn't believe, especially when certain individuals decide to venture outside. Periodic pauses for comments from law enforcement, scientists, an abductee, and even a video expert arguing that the tape must be a hoax reinforce the realism, as does the "call if you've seen any of these people" video montage at the end. The family members certainly interact well together, as these folks clearly aren't working by any set script. I was ready to throttle the woman who kept yelling "Is everything all right?" but you have to love such tidbits of wisdom as the mother's reaction to the sound of aliens on the roof: "It's probably just raccoons - they like to pick through the trash." Where I come from, we don't put our trash on the roof, but remember that this woman never puts her wine glass down the whole night. She also keeps insisting that everyone sit down to dinner, even after both the aliens and humans have suffered a casualty apiece.

Even though this film doesn't portray anything remotely resembling the standard abduction scenario, I have to think it is still much too realistic for actual abductees to watch. That being said, I think those of us who are familiar with the stories of abductees will find this film much more unnerving than unbelievers. There is one particularly disturbing scene about halfway through the film that could scare the bejesus out of you - and it's never mentioned afterward because the person who experienced it had no conscious memory of it. I certainly wouldn't recommend this for the kiddies - not unless you enjoy being awakened in the middle of the night by blood-curdling screams coming from your child's bedroom.

The history of this film is far too complicated to get into (there was, for example, an earlier version that turned up in parts in some surprising places), which only adds to the whole mystique. All I can say is that it's a crying shame that Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County is all but impossible to find these days. It's brilliantly produced in all of its ultra-realistic facets. Had this film garnered a theatrical release and been played up and marketed in an underground Blair Witch fashion, I believe it would have made a killing at the box office. I dare you to watch this film alone late at night.

If this is the made for tv movie I saw on rented VHS around 1996 or so, then it was great. I am not absolutely sure. The one that I saw was in home movie style, and from various comments found on other websites, I thought that this title is the one I am looking for. A family at home in the woods hears something outdoors, one person goes to investigate with a handheld video camera; he finds a crashed UFO about 500 yards from the house. Then he goes back and tells the family; they spend the night trying to survive while the aliens come at them and try to take over. Eventually there is no hollywood ending and the family is apparently captured; aliens walk into the house and seeing the camera, it malfunctions; end of story. Everything in the film is quite believable; the aliens look right; the terror seems real, and the aliens work using telepathy apparently, so that the people are not able to fight them off. Also they keep coming even if guns are fired off at them. This sounds goofy, but the way it is filmed, it is fun and fairly believable in the way all the action is filmed and acted. The UFO community was warning about this because it was thought to be too close to reality, so that if someone saw it thinking it was real, they would then be angry when the credit rolls at the end. This is a good indication of how powerful the material is. I had a great time watching it, but recently could not find the VHS anywhere for rental. Would like to rent or buy either VHS or DVD, preferably new DVD. Has to be the complete movie though. The short clips on YouTube are not enough; i want the entire movie.

The story generally follows the Hopkinsville Kentucky UFO incident decades ago, in which a family was reportedly trapped in their own home overnight, using shotguns and fighting off UFO aliens which try to come in thru the windows and roof. That is a well researched UFO incident in history; it has been rejected by some people but it is widely thought to be a potentially true account of what happened. (This is perhaps similar to some South American sightings and experiences where people reported negative health effects and seemingly outright attacks by UFOs; see Varginha Brazil UFO accounts.)

"Alien Abduction" is well-worth snapping up if you can find a reasonably priced used copy. This was originally broadcast as a "War of the Worlds'-type hoax that was so realistic it infuriated many UFOlogists and true believers. The gimmick (novel at the time) was that we are watching amateur videotape footage of actual events, and the film has a deliberately amateurish quality as a result. Given that the films hits virtually every 'Intruders' cliche in the book, the novelty of this presentation adds a freshness that would otherwise be lacking. As might be guessed given its TV origins, the violence and special effects in 'Alien Abduction' are toned down, which adds to the realism of the story. This is one of my favorite sci-fi films due to this freshness.

It's sad that 'Alien Abduction' is out-of-print and so hard to find. While I can't claim this movie is to everyone's tastes, it's one of the more unnerving and surprising experiences I've had. (Maybe this is because I remember it from its 'hoax' days?) While I wouldn't pay top dollar for this, I would suggest picking this up if you see it given the high re-sale value if you don't want to keep it.