Cutting Deep Into Horror | Fire in the Sky (1993): Alien Abduction, Trauma, and Small-Town Panic

0:08 Greetings Earthling. Oh, I am Valdemar, of the planet Valdemar. So you're named after the place or what is. Your earth name? Is it Valdemar? No? Why are you laughing? Why do your people laugh? Why do they love? Answer my question? I mean the why do we love? Though? That like, that's part of the human experience. This is too hard. Yeah, I'm going to just cut into your eyeball with a needle instead.

0:54 Please tell much easier, No, please stop. This podcast is about why horror scares us, what deep dark secrets scary cinema shines a light on. The discussions are frank and involve conversations about abuse, trauma, and mental health. There are also spoilers, so keep that in mind too. Now, sharpen your machetes and strap raisers, because this is cutting deep into horror.

1:36 Hello, my spookies, and welcome back to Cutting Deep into Horror. I know it's been a while, but great sequels are worth the weight, Like Freddy versus Jason. That's the only example I have of a horror sequel. I waited a really long time. Well, okay, phantasm five. Yeah, that's a good one though. That's debated, but is so is Freddy versus and everything is debated with horror movie fans anyway. That's why we're here, that's true. So for those who are new to the program, I'm of course you're your host, Enrique Kuto here with my co host Rachel Ridolfi. Hi, everybody, and we love to talk about the deeper side of scary cinema. That's that's my favorite, one of my favorite pastimes.

2:22 Yeah, well, we do it for fun, so why not record ourselves. I don't do anything for fun? How dare you? That terrible allocation? Landeris statement. But we've talked about a lot of great horror movies, and sometimes we don't. We go off the beaten paths. Sometimes we stick to things that are a little bit more mainstream. This one feels like it's a little bit of both. Actually, yeah, if you think about it, because it was a theatrical film. We're talking about tonight, Fire in the Sky from nineteen nine three, and if you've never seen Fire in the Sky by Robert Lieberman.

3:07 Oh man, I thought I had the info. It's streaming. It's got to be streaming somewhere for free. I apologize, I thought I had that ready, but I only had the Wikipedia page. I ruined it, okay, So it's available to stream right now on Pluto TV, so you can watch it for free with ads there as my computer tried to just do that instead of lamecy. It's also available to rent on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Fandango at Home and things like that. So but Pluto TV is where you can get it absolutely free with commercials. We try to pick films that people could sit down and watch right before the program and hopefully it doesn't cost you anything. But you know, shit happens when you party naked, as I like to say so. But Fire in the Sky is an alien abduction film that had a why theatrical release but then didn't do super well theatrically. But an entire generation, myself included in that generation, were scarred by the film. I don't like how like how happy you are by me say I was scarred by the flavor.

4:17 It's like, yes, yes, pain, I know, but no it was. It was a very terrifying film to watch because most alien movies, and there are exceptions, but most alien films are not about the horrors of aliens in that way. They may be about the horrors of conflict or the horrors of intergalactic war. But they're not shown to you like The Exorcist, you know, they're they're shown to you like Terminator. Yeah, it's not quite gonna keep you awake at night because you watched it, which is bizarre when you think about it, because aliens are really a scary concept, especially alien abduction. Yeah, the idea of an unknown being taking you from your home in the middle of the night, taking you into a craft that you don't recognize, and doing scientific experiments on you was actually really really scary, But we don't see it depicted as that scary that often. Particularly, we don't see alien abduction in films very often. If you think about it, it's a really strange lack a lack of that phenomena in movies.

5:37 Well, because after we had watched this, we were discussing it and we were like, you know, there's movies like Independance Day, there's movies like Enemy Mine. There are sci fi movies where, you know, the Avatar series, there are sci fi movies that heavily feature you know, extraterrestrials, but it is kind of presented in this like Hoorah, Go Earth kind of way sure, Well. Because it's generally the realm of science fiction, and generally science fiction is in the realm of action adventure exactly. Yeah, but. Horror and science fiction also go. You know, there are two great tastes that taste great together, and this one definitely blends that very very expertly.

6:27 Well. Unfortunately, it also maintains the trope that horror and science fiction going together. It doesn't really hit at the box office. Yeah, because Event Horizon, we both adore Event Horizon, one of the scariest movies there is. That's a space horror movie, and it did not do hugely well box office receipts, but then very very well loved after the fact, much like this film. Yeah. So that's where it gets tricky, because you know, you can't if you make a movie with the goal being to be a cult hit, you're that's a dangerous, dangerous idea for investors. Yeah, they don't like caring like it'll be a cult hit. That means it will fail initially. Well, failure is common enough. We don't need help getting to failure, okay.

7:14 Yeah, yeah, so we do not need a guarantee. No, no, very few things are guaranteed in life, but science fiction horror. And there have been other attempts. There was like that Apollo was it Apollo fourteen or Apollo fifteen, the Alien on the Moon movie. I mean there have been and they were pretty scary, because that's the other friggin thing. Space is scary, Space is terrifying. Hence Alien. Yeah, Alien is a great example of a science fiction horror movie that's well loved. It was really successful, but everything it's spawned afterward was pretty much action. Yeah, so and I get why. I mean, science fiction is a whole other world to play in, so you know, guns and spaceships and yeah, there's a lot to play with. So I could see why that becomes that became such a common trope. But the horror of the unknown is the number one horror trope that there is, because no matter what you say, you can turn into the horror of the unune. Well, it's about a guy with the hockey mask.

8:15 It's about how we don't really know how evil people can be. You see, It's always about what you don't know. And what I don't know is what I'm going to say. After this quick break, All right, we're back, and I do want to mention that there has been when it comes to the realm of alien abduction horror, there has been a bit of a boon in the last twenty years fifteen years that there hadn't been before. Twenty thirteen was Dark Skies, which was actually a Blumhouse production early in the bloomho cycle when they were still doing a lot of their quote unquote first run stuff that went directly to streaming. It didn't do big theatrical but from Dark Skies, which was a kind of like an alien alien abduction story, but it was like I saw it, so I'm like trying to go off my brain and said, just reading the bullshit online. But it was like a haunting but it was aliens, you know, like it was like Poltergeist, but it was aliens because the aliens were causing all the crazy shit to happen in the house and terrorizing the people.

9:28 Ooh ooh, I like that. Yeah, it was really fun. I highly recommend that one. And then was Oh An Extraterrestrial from twenty fourteen, which was directed by the same guys who did Grave Encounters, and it's kind of like a Cabin in the Wood slasher movie, but the killers are aliens and it's gory, mean spirited, really weird. And I did enjoy that one. The fourth Kind from two thousand and nine, which was a fake documentary kind of found footage dramatization thing and fly hypnosis and real cottage a quote unquote of alien abductions. A lot of people didn't love that one, but I thought it was definitely trying to be scary and I respect that, and I thought I thought it was at least a little scary.

10:10 Yeah. Then, of course this is the one that I realized, like, I went, oh duh when I saw this list Altered from two thousand and six that was directed by Eduardo Sanchez. I love that you made that face like you were gonna go I, oh yeah, And you don't know who. That is, but for some reason I recognized that name. But I'm just insane. Well. Altered from two thousand and six was a bound footage horror movie. I believe it was found footage. Yeah, it was about aliens attacking people, and Eduardo Sanchez was one of the two directors on the Blair Witch Project. That's why I recognized that. Yes, okay, maybe so I'm just insane. I mean, they're all good options. So, but those are all very recent examples of people leaning into that yeah that space And then wasn't that was the film we watched on Hulu?

10:56 Is it no One is? No One Will Save You? No One? Yeah? I think it was No One Will say yeah. No One Will Save You from twenty twenty three, which had like one line of spoken dialogue the entire film. It's currently on Hulu, and I do recommend it. It's pretty fun and scary. It was very scary and just dripping with with uh suspense, suspense and the mood. Yeah, suspense. Is that what you tryun to stand him? Mike? Yeah, no, no, no, no it is. It was really really fun, really scary. So that all being said, yeah, science fiction and horror. I think I wish it would merge together more often, but I could see why often it doesn't, at least not in big, big movies. But Fire in the Sky became an incredibly known movie to older millennials and younger Gen xers because they would be like, what was that movie that, uh, my dad rented a blockbuster and then I was Afraid of the Sky forever? Yeah, and then and then you because somebody asked you that one time they said, like, I saw a movie once.

11:58 It freaked me out, and I was like, yeah, it was like it had aliens And I was like, was it fire in the sky And they're like, I don't know. But they tie him to a table and they put this weird thing over fire in the sky. It's fire and talking about yeah. Oh, And to hit home the fact that it left me modestly traumatized when we rewatched it, this was your first time watching it. This was my first time rewatching it as an adult. Most of the movie, I mean, I think the movie's really solid. It's a really interesting movie with great characters. The writing makes sense. I didn't remember Jack shit of any of that. All I remembered, like I would watch it and be like, oh, I kind of remember that. Oh I kind of remember, like him in that truck and then them getting a fight.

12:44 But then once he's in this, they show him in the spaceship and they're like getting ready to dissect him. I was like, Okay. Then they put him on the table, then they put the thing over him, then they open up the slit over his eye, then the thing comes down to his eye, then the thing goes in his bad I remembered all of it. Yeah, yeah, you were giving me like a play by play as it was happy, like I remember this part and this is going to happen. Instantly, I was like, Okay, there's where all the trauma lies. Yes, no, without a doubt. So yeah, that was That was the That's the the level of memorability that you get with Fire in the Sky. So before we jump into it, I'll give some pertinent details. Fire in the Sky from nineteen ninety three. It was directed by Robert Lieberman. The screenplay was written by Tracy Torment. Robert Lieberman had done a lot of television. This was one of his few forays into film like feature films. Before that, he was most known for All I Want for Christmas, the romantic comedy with Tom with That's in that I thought I could remember off the top of my head, with Thora Birch and Leslie Nielsen. Those are the two us to remember.

13:55 Then he did D three The Mighty Ducks right after Fire in the Sky. But then he'd stuff like Net Force, which was a TV movie, Second String which was a TV movie, The Dead Zone TV movie. He was mostly a TV movie and television guy. He directed episodes of the X Files. Later in his career he directed episodes of Gabriel's Fire, a lot of stuff, so he was mostly a TV director, but he did dabble in feature films, and this was one of his dabblings that I thought turned out really well. And I almost guarantee that's what got him on X Files was that he directed Fire in the Sky because it just what a freaky movie. So it is based sort of on a true story, very sort of, well.

14:41 It's based on a true account. It's based on a book, yeah, the Walton Experience, written by Travis Walton about his experience he claims of being abducted by aliens. And the movie is a very highly dramatized and highly altered version of the book. And the name are all at least Travis Walton, isn't it. There's a character Travis Walton. But I will say the book is not nearly I looked into it. The book is not nearly as scary. Aw it is scary, but the book is mostly about meeting aliens, the experience and how it changes you, how people treat you differently. And I mean, and I assume the other thing you would learn if you wrote the book was what kind of money a book can make you? Ah, yeah, could be a lot, could be a little. I don't know on this one.

15:28 But but yeah, So he was not like it was not the way the movie was. It was not at all that way. It was very, very different. The aliens in the book were described as like Nordic blonde white people. Uh huh. And in this film, the way the aliens are depicted, I think is brilliant and truly scary. It is so. But in the book, yeah, they're not like that at all. They are they are considered like this oddly Nordic, super blonde human humanoids from space kind of thing, right, uh huh. Don't read enough serious UFO literature if you think that's strange, because the people have been saying that forever. It's like, and then you have like the proto humans.

16:11 Oh I know, well I've read some of it, and it's fascinating because there is like a there is kind of a method to the madness, and it's just fascinating to think about. Well, and and I think we're going to have to have a somewhat expansive conversation about aliens. But first this break. So we're back and talking a little bit more about aliens as we take a look at fire in the sky.

16:53 But I've always been fascinated by aliens. I mean since I was a little kid, and I mean it was kind of aliens and ghosts. It was just like that's what you liked if you were a total loser nerd. And I'm talking elementary school. I'm talking like way young to be caring about this stuff. I knew by the time I was nine or ten years old. I knew about Project Blue Book. I knew all about like Roswell, I knew all about groom Lake. I knew all of this crap because I would check out books from the library about it. And that was probably the funniest part was there were two UFO books, two in the whole library. We're talking elementary school library. And I know your homeschool too.

17:35 You're like, I don't know what that means, but it's smaller, like the people, the kids are smaller, the. Books are small. There's less books. Yeah, but there were two UFO books and I checked them both out, and I was the only name on the cards, like nobody else the little checkout cards. Nobody else had ever checked them out just me so and then there was a ghost book too that was really interesting because that's when I learned about what a poltergeist is supposedly, and and and one of my favorite explanations for poltergeists, which was many mistake poultergeists for ghosts when in reality it's simply as a misdiagnosis of psychokinetic activity. And I was like, oh, so you. Thought it was the sasquatch, but it was actually the Lockness Monster. Like okay, that's an explanation that makes sense, Thank goodness, right, yeah, Like you might think it's a unicorn, but it's actually a leprechaun.

18:25 Thank goodness. We sorted that out. So but I would read about UFOs and UFO abduction all the time, of course, and I think, I don't know if I've mentioned on this show, but I've mentioned it on like Monthly Spooky and stuff. But I suffer from sleep paralysis, m h. And that's made me very aware of UFO stories and stuff like that, because the theory is a lot of people who believe they've been abducted by aliens are probably suffering from sleep paralysis, so they're waking up and being unable to move, and there's an intense sense of paranoia you get during the initial fit as well. And that's also why a lot of people, you know, think they're ghosts and stuff that they can't move, they're frozen and panic and they can't really understand what's going on around them. Very scary feeling. And I could see that being you know, related to UFOs and aliens and alien abduction. But what about you? Were you like an alien kid?

19:20 What were you? What was your thing? Well? I wanted so badly to be but you know, aliens aren't Christian, so like, yeah, you have to go up. There and proselytize to them. You've got to spread the word of God. But the al that's in the book, they can't be Christian until you convert them. That's that's the whole coin. That's the thing. That's like saying they they don't believe in Africa because because they're not Christians, like you're supposed to go there and tell them about it. But so my my guilty pleasure probably around like nine ten eleven, is I would I would watch on like Discovery and the Science Channel and on the Sci Fi Network.

20:08 There would be you know, like educational shows about space and I could like sneak it where I would watch programming that would verge onto like talking about aliens. And my entire start my starting point was not the library. My starting point was the History Channel and Discovery Channel. No, No, That's what made me want to get talk about aliens was I listened to them talk about aliens and Hitler that was about it. It's pretty pretty much all it was at that point. Basically, that's all there was to talk about. So yeah, I you know, and it would definitely fascinate me. I mean one of my one of my earliest memories of being scared of a movie was watching way too young, watching the movie Enemy Mine and getting totally totally terrified, uh you know, from from some of the violent scenes with the like pincer grabby alien that.

21:05 Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And those were more like alien animals. They weren't even like alien, they weren't alien humanoids or whatever they were. They were like they were like alien versions of hyenas and exact stuff and things that could hurt you in the woods, and. That was terrifying. It was like, but the wild animals on Earth are bad enough, You're telling me there's planets with worse. Wild animals out there. That's bad, that's terrifying wild. If it was just like on alien planets, everything was different, but the animals were always exactly the same. So like they could breathe totally different gas, and like the aliens could look could be like giant blobs of purple protoplatah. But here's the Mars. But there's just a dog. It's just there's just a shnoodle, just like dagging its tail waiting to catch a space frisbee.

21:54 I like this. I know you do. I mean, of course you do so, but no, yeah, I yeah. Aliens were always something I was really interested in. And when I saw Fire in the Sky it scared me really badly. It would have been probably ninety five after it came out on VHS and everybody was talking about how scary it was and how it was based on the true story and blah blah blah. So it freaked me out pretty good. And yeah, what were your first thoughts you know after watching it? Well, the first thing. The first thing was because you and I, you and I had again, we talked about it before we watched the movie, and you were telling me like, this is one of the few This is one of the few sci fi movies that verges onto horror, but it's still specifically about alien abduction and like what we think of as like aliens circa the early nineties, late eighties. And after we got done watching it, I realized the reason no one else has tried to make a movie dealing with that that kind of broad genre of aliens is because Fire and the Sky did it so perfectly that like, how.

23:07 Could you made no money? Yeah, for the record, like Jaws made a shark movie perfectly, and then a thousand people made worse shark movies to make money. Yes, but yeah, like as not necessarily as a filmmaker, but as an investor, like how would you justify being like, Wow, Fire and the Sky did it perfect and they spill still made no money? Like you're not gonna want to invest in it. But as a filmmaker, it's like, why would you want to Why would you want to copy what someone's already done, Because that's what people are going to feel that you're doing. Is if you try to make a movie, people are going to be like, yeah, but they're just trying to be firing the sky because in the end, wouldn't I mean, it's it's like the it's like the archetype of the terrifying alien abduction movie now because it did it so perfectly.

23:57 But with all that being said, it's actually a surprisingly it's a surprisingly, pardon the pun, down to earth story about small town life and what happens when ordinary people experience extraordinary circumstances. Because most of the film is not about the guy being in a spaceship. No, and that's a relatively small amount of the movie. Is actually the scene that everyone thinks of when they think of Fire in the Sky. Yeah, it's the big payoff is at the end to really like stick its point. And we'll talk all about that and go fully into Fire in the Sky right after this. So we're back, and now we're finally gonna talk a little bit about the specifics of what really makes Fire in the Sky so scary, because it's not just alien needles and eyes and milky white liquids. There's yeah, yeah, yeah, well that's a lot of it, but there's a lot going on in Fire in the Sky to be scared of.

25:12 Well, I the first thing that struck me. As the movie opened because when the movie opens. It does a great job of really building the suspense right from the get go, because it starts with this pickup truck full of guys speeding through the woods and like barely missing trees, and they lose a mirror and they pull into a bar, and it immediately starts building an atmosphere because from the way it's filmed, from the way the guys pile out of the truck and get into the bar, from the way everyone looks at them, you immediately get the store worry of. This is a small town where everybody knows each other, everybody knows each other's business, they know what they're up to, and something very strange has just happened. And the movie is really good at building up that atmosphere, and it builds it masterfully until it finally pays off and we get you know, what we've all been waiting for. Because you don't go into this movie, especially now since it's been out for you know, twenty years, you don't go into this movie without knowing like this is about alien abduction. So every piece that they give you as the story develops holds you over and piques your interest more and more until they finally

26:44 give you that that big payoff in the third act. Thirty years by the way, damn it. So you're right, Well, specifically, it opens with them driving their truck through these rough terrain and they're clearly speeding through like a bat out of hell, like devastating the truck as they're zooming around. Yeah, they're all screaming and yelling. And then when they get to this local watering hole, like the nearest place where people are to call for help, they pull up and the truck is is smoking, and they pulled up like psychos, like the guy is sitting on the porch or just like what on earth. Then they all get out and they're dead quiet.

27:32 Yeah, not a word. Yeah, And I found that to be extremely memorable about the film, that they they're just quiet. They go inside, they call the police, and they wait for the police to arrive. That alone does such a good job of making you go, hey, what the hell is happening? Like okay shit, and that that really hooked me immediately, even though I did, you know, remember the massive alien payoff later on. Then they also they had a lot of fun with imagery to kind of keep this mentality of you don't know what's coming. I mean, you think you do, but you don't because you don't see an alien ship.

28:21 You see some strange lights very briefly, and that's it to start for the most part. Then they show that federal officer or the state officer coming down to investigate, and at one point he looks up and they have these big red lights like flying over his windshield and reflection looks like a UFO. Yeah, and then they cut and reveal it's just the little the bar lowering because a train, Yeah, at a train crossing. And I felt that was a great fake out. And again that's a beautiful way that they built this anticipation and this tension because they know, you know, you're there for aliens, and they're playing with that expectation the whole time.

29:06 Absolutely. Yeah. And and of course once the police arrive, they recount their story and it's very simple there. We get a lot of the and and rightfully so, we get a lot of who the characters are that they're you know, normal people. But before we get all of that, we start with just if I'm remembering correctly, we start with just the recounting of the incident. Yeah, So they're in the woods. They're driving back. They've been logging, well, they're cleaning brush for the for the state, and they're getting there heading back and they see a giant amount of red light in the sky and then somebody says there must be a forest fire, and they're like, well, I guess so. So they're driving along and all of a sudden they just get really like what the hell is going on? And they basically say that their friend got abducted by They basically say that he got hit by a beam of light, flew up into the air, fell on the ground, which was a really wild scene to watch, and that when they came back, they ran off afraid and when they came back to get him, he was gone. Yeah, And the cops are just kind of like, right, it becomes immediately obvious that they're thinking, oh, you you killed this guy, or this guy died in some way, and you guys are trying to cover it up or protect yourselves or something like that. That's the immediate thought process. And they start poking at all these guys,

30:38 these guys you barely get, you barely know. Yet one of them is named Dallas, and he's clearly a he's not a vagrant necessarily anymore. But he was a vagrant. He was a drifter, a hobo, I mean, like by the literal sense, because this takes place in nineteen I want to say, seventy five. Yeah, seventy three, seventy five, something. Like that, So I think it was nineteen seve five, chibble checking, seventy five, yep. And so back then, hobos were still a pretty normal thing. And for those who don't know, a hobo is not a homeless person. That's become what people believe hobo means. But hoboes were just traveling workers. They had no home, and their thing was going from town to town to get work to make money, and usually they would mail at home or whatever. So this guy is clearly a hobo. He has a record.

31:33 People have pointed that out, you know, that he seems like he doesn't trust police, things like that, and that just raises even more red flags, and we as the audience, are starting to wonder what could have happened. They start placing doubt in us really quickly to make us wonder what exactly is going on, and hopefully we'll figure that out. After this, we're back talking all about the fire in the sky and we just finished hearing about how their friend was shot up into the air from strange lights.

32:16 He disappeared. But the detective on the scene, not the local sheriff, who even he's pretty bewildered, but he knows these guys for the most part. He's immediately just thinking of if any of these guys got a record, and that Dallas guy definitely has a record. That was it was very interesting. You know, again, the the movie plays with your expectations and one of the themes that was kind of woven throughout because again, the actual abduction scene that we all think of is very short. It comes either at the end of the second act or beginning of the third act. Toward the end of the movie, I.

33:02 Would say it's the beginning or middle of the third act. Okay, yeah, so, but it's still uh, the movie still builds up the whole atmosphere, just telling the story through the lens of the townsfolk and the loggers who experienced this. And then the other person on the scene is this Detective Waters or Lieutenant Waters, who is the guy from the state, and it's very interesting. They play with this expectation of aliens or things that are not from here, coming here, ending and examining things. And here we've got this detective coming into this crime scene and examining things, and he's kind of poking around where he doesn't really know what's going on. Uh. And it's very interesting the way he in around with the loggers versus the way the local sheriff who like knows these guys and like Rogers even beseeches the sheriff at one point and says, like, you know me, You've known me for my whole life, Like why can't you believe me when I tell you that this is what happens. Whereas you know, with with Waters, because he's not from around here. Everyone they treat him with respect, but they also treat him very much like an outsider.

34:32 Well, there's a lot to be said in the positive and negative for having law enforcement that is a part of the community. Yeah, you know, generally speaking, it's a benefit because they kind of understand the world they're in, They understand the people, They understand the lifestyle of the people, you know, so they can generally police them better. But sometimes that can cause, you know, the policing to be a little too soft or a little too favorited. Or what have you. And that's really bad. That's you know, when you need an outsider to come in and kind of look everything over and be like no, no, no, yeah, this is not right. So at first, you know, we get a little taste of that, but you're right, Like eventually everybody starts to agree with the out of town detective. Yeah, and the people, the townspeople are already in their sewing circles, just going on and on about you killed this guy, and it's worth mentioning too. I forget the name of the foreman, the guy who was hiring everybody.

35:32 I believe that was Rogers. And let's see, yeah, Mike Rogers. I don't know if we I don't think we covered. But like, on top of all of that, he and Travis were very good friends, very good friends. I mean, these were people that were being hired to do day labor. Basically they were all working on a contract from the state. But Travis was also dating Mike Rogers' younger sister and intending to marry her, so they were pretty close. But also, anything happening to Travis is like doubly affecting Mike rogers life because it was his friend and his sister's boyfriend. So now his sister is a mess, a basket case on top of everything else. That makes things pretty challenging.

36:19 And on top of that, Mike Rogers and his wife are it's very plain from the get go that their relationship is not in the best shape and also like their finances are in terrible shape. Now that's why I think took this odd. I think that's why their relationship isn't in a very good shape. Is they're struggling to pay their mortgage and he's got this government contract that pays pretty well, but they have to get the job done on time. That was because that was already something they were talking about and stressing about, was that they weren't getting the work done on time, that they were goofing off too much. Yeah, so the townspeople have pretty much decided that Travis was murdered and that these guys are all covering it up by playing everybody as idiots by saying this crazy alien abduction BS story.

37:14 That's the vibe I get is that, oh yeah, pretty much the entire town, aside from maybe you know your own mother thinks you did this. Yeah, And Mike Rogers' wife even like that's one of the fights that they have is she's talking about, like people avoid me on the street, and our daughters like they can't even go to school because everyone's talking about how their dad murdered his best friend and is trying to cover it up. So again, the movie, while it's you know, it's, while it's about aliens, it is also about what happens in this town and what happens to these people after this experience that nobody, nobody but them can believe because it's so outlandish.

38:02 Well, have you ever heard the term small towns with big secrets or small towns with big problems? I have? Yeah, I mean, it doesn't get much bigger than outer space. I don't really think, No, not really. So, and we'll dig into that small town terror and trauma right after this and we're back. We've talked a little bit about the small town's reaction to this whole event, and at this point, they've combed the woods by where they say he's went missing multiple times at first with the guys who were there to point where it was, but of course each of them seems to remember a different place. Yeah, but human memory is very inaccurate, So that's just especially in the middle of the night when.

39:05 You're after a long day of hard work. That was like a twelve hour day of cutting down trees and gathering brush. Yeah, it'd be pretty hard to concentrate on much of anything. Yeah. We also start to find out that Dallas had a problem with Travis, that they were constantly getting into fights at squabbles. Yeah, that's not helpful and. It looks really bad to the investigator from the state. I'm assuming that they were. He was starting to believe Dallas had done something to Travis and that the others were covering it up in order to maintain their work, something like something like that, trying to or to absolve themselves of any implication or something like that, something along those lines, some kind of you know, cop gymnastics, but which have you ever watched the cop gymnastics? It's excellently How you could do that land and your gun stays in the holster incredible so so but no, So we've talked about the small town reactions. We've talked about you know, the lady and the diner, and and there are people in this town that are hinted at that they seem to empathize or sympathize, like, for instance, the waitress of the diner, who's just like who you know, when somebody starts saying like, oh you over there, you know, you know he kills somebody she's watched. Just do you need more coffee? You know, he's trying to like stop this, trying to keep this peace.

40:34 Like diffuse it, because it. Sounds like overall this is a very peaceful community, you know, I mean, albeit small and albeit a bit economically depressed. It's a small town in the desert, you know, they they there are lots of them, especially because you know, people would come and go for gold and some people would stay. Yeah, so I do like seeing that those little bit tidbits here and there where it's like, this is a small town in the peace. People do try to care for each other. It's just they're all human and well until this but a bum But so we've talked about that. Now let's talk a little bit about the fact that this is going bigger. Yeah, it's going beyond this little town that I'm trying to remember the name of Snowflake. Snowflake, thank you so much. I was struggling with that one. Some of this information is not as readily available as I would like. Yeah, but this small town of Snowflake has now become national news. Major newspapers are starting to pick up the story. And again, remember this is nineteen seventy five, so this is just after the Civil rights movement had really like gone full tilt and boogie. You know, we've landed on the moon, which has made people look up to the skies a little bit more. And in a lot of ways, this is the height of the alien comic book movies. They were kind of you know, they they were huge in the fifties,

42:05 but there was another boom after the moon landing. Yeah, so people are thinking about these things. And of course the red herring pun intended, which is the Soviet Union is still up and kicking. So people are they're tense. Yeah, they're worrying, even in small town America. And then we get introduced to this nebbish gentleman with a with a camera and a pair of round rimmed glasses from an organization called Afar, which the first time when he first walks in and says I'm whatever, you know, I'm so and so from Afar or I'm from Afar, I was like like, so you traveled along the way. That's pretty funny.

42:48 My first thought was like, just say, you know, just say New York, Like just say, like, don't say you're from AFAR. Like these people they have why are you making it weird? They have maps here, dude, I know they're far into the desert, but like they know there's other places they don't think of, just like here and elsewhere. But AFAR stands for Aerial Phenomena Research. No, it doesn't, see this keeps trying to fool me. It stands for American Foundation of Aerial Research, which was a stand in for the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization or APRO, which is the actual UFO organization that was involved in the Travis Walton case. Yes, and he's basically like he walks up to Rogers and he's like, I believe you, and I think that, and I want to get as much information as I can from you to see how it compares to people who've been in your situation before. But of course he does come off because he kind of is as like a weirdo. Yeah, so he doesn't really want much from him, but he does take his business card because that's.

43:51 The first person who has in it, because even his wife won't believe him. This is the. First person, the literal first person that did not experience this that says I believe you. I wouldn't go that far. It seems like some people believe, but this is the first stranger, Yeah to believe him, like bar none. Anybody who doesn't know him at all is like that guy killed him, like just immediately. So to have somebody completely from from Afar show up and say like I believe you, yeah, that's huge, massive, massive thing. Again, to have anybody you know that.

44:33 Isn't your mom believe you is that's a big win in this situation. So and we because there's so much that happens as far as the human drama. Rogers is now living in a hotel, a motel down the road, which also hinted at the circus that was coming, because he comes in there to get a room and they're like, yeah, we're full of Oh. He tells him that tomorrow they're full. Like today they have rooms, but tomorrow they're completely booked, which tells you that people from newspapers all over America are coming, and they are, and they're chasing him around with film cameras and microphones and asking rogers to give his statement, to give his side, which is extra crazy because technically there is only one side you can get because if there's a victim, he has not given his side, So you have the investigator's assumptions and inferences, and then you have their side. Yes, but you know how the media, you know, can friensify very quickly. They love a good narrative that's easy to follow, you know, men go into woods kill man, lie about it, you know, say it was UFOs. That's very easy to turn into a headline or twelve. If the news is slow, you know, if Khrushchev hasn't done anything exciting lately, then at least you could talk about the yocals killing a guy. Yeah, you know, and and national news was a big deal back then. Yeah,

46:04 so it's it's the circus is really I think one of my favorite parts, especially the second act, seeing the town kind of changing. Yeah, and and and these guys realizing that, like they've told what they could and they just need to keep going with what the police want because what else can you do. Yeah, Like it really is starting to happen where people don't trust them and think they've committed a horrible crime. Well, and and it builds so excellently these two things together because the the guys have to comply. Basically, the guys have to comply with what the police want them to do or else it's it's inferred as being admission of guilt.

46:55 Well by the public, by the public. That's a really important But that's of public opinions completely, right, that's kind of that was kind of what I was getting at. But you put it a little bit better. Is they're realizing that public opinion is the only court they're going to be in for a very long time. Yeah, because nobody's been charged with anything. Nobody's there and they're technically accused. Yeah, and there's like there's no evidence, like there's no there's no way for the police or any law enforcement to even like do anything beyond the vague questioning that they've done, which is why it's brought to the table of like, Okay, you need to take a lie detector test, because again, like the lie detector test is not going to absolve you. All it's going to do is put one token, yeah, in the public opinion that will stand up for you.

47:54 That's that's about it. Yeah, the lie detector test. All it will really do is give you a little hint of mercy from the public. Yeah, that's what you can hope for. Yeah, And they're all reticent to take it because lie detector tests are inadmissible in court. They can be wrong, they can be fooled. And Dallas is really upset because he doesn't want to be hooked up to those machines. Man, and it starts raising questions because we know about his criminal past, and it makes you wonder like is he saying this out of personal experience? And there is one other element that we might have glossed over that really helps sow the seed of doubt in us the viewer that I think about a lot, and you'll find out after this. So what I teased before was not It wasn't a trick. It wasn't a trap this one time. Throughout this movie so far, there have been little moments where the guys are talking to each other and they've mentioned keeping their stories straight, that they've been little, tiny things, but like they slowly get more and more where it seems like they're hiding something

49:24 mm hmm. And that has definitely helped make the audience wonder are these guys to blame. Because it it's it does start to feel like that. And it's not only it's not only seeds of doubts specifically against Dallas. It's you start to see how all of the other guys kind of interact with each other, and you start to see like it not only not only are they trying to protect you know, themselves as individuals, but you really start to see like they are definitely trying to protect each other. And Dallas is kind of like that. I wouldn't call him a weak link. He's more of a wild card that they have to rein in. Yeah, and they have to tell him like, you're the one that if any it, you're the crack. You're the crack that they're all looking at, and if you do anything, it reflects poorly on us. And I think that's kind of interesting again, because everybody in this town really knows each other. Dallas, you know, he's been there, but he's a hobo. He hasn't been there as long. He's living on the outskirts of town, and you really start to feel like that otherness between him and the townsfolk, and then him and the other guys, and I think that was a very interesting way that they they played that off,

50:57 and it really culminated in the scene leading up to and the scenes around doing the light detector test, and then it's kind of revealed that after the light detector test, all of the guys seem to be telling the truth. The only person that they really can't get a beat on is Dallas. Well, Dallas's test came back inconclusive. Yeah, but here's this is the part where you buried the lead just a little. Though. The great thing about the lighte detector test sequence is it's just as tense as you would expect a lie detector's sequence to be. I mean, I think I think most people would rather not take a polygraph test, Yeah, because it's uncomfortable. You're being challenged, you're being asked tons of questions, you don't know what the questions will be mm hmm, and you don't know when they're going to ask a serious question versus when they're going to ask a question because they're trying to surprise you to get a baseline to understand how your body reacts to things. Yeah, but a big element of polygraph tests is they're more voodoo than they are science.

52:11 Yeah. In fact, if you look into polygraph tests, one of the most powerful tools a polygraph I don't know what the testers are called, but a polygraph tester has is to convince you that the polygraph test works. Because generally people don't get in trouble or don't get busted for a failed lie detector test. That's just on Mari Povich. In real life, when people take polygraphs and get busted, they confess, yeah, because they ask them like, is there any reason why this reading would be off? Or is there any reason why you might be might be might be confused, or why might why it seems like you're lying here? They get you to confess. That's really the power of the lie detector test is to convince them that it works. It's the same way with a lot of those those drugs that are supposedly they make it impossible for you to lie. Truth serum truth serums Exactly, they're mostly bunk. It's mostly about they're mostly barbituates. And you convince somebody that they're not capable of lying if you give it to them, and then you give it to them.

53:23 It's like murder party, very much like. Murder party, but also another great episode. But also it's it's an important element to keep in mind because it's all manipulation, Yeah, to keep people on their toes, to get them to confess or what have you. It's an interrogation technique, that's really what it is. All it measures is your blood pressure and heart rate and stuff. Yeah, nobody. There's no guarantee that somebody, like, if you have a full blown sociopath, it's never gonna work. Yeah, it's never gonna work. And full blown sociopaths are hard to catch. So what's the lie detector for for the guy who's like visibly sweating and like, you know, preying under his breath as he's to you, Come on, dude, you know so.

54:03 And that's why polygraphs are in admissible in court, but they do affect public opinion, which is why most people refuse to take one. Because it's important to keep in mind that in the American justice system, you cannot be held accountable for refusing to incriminate yourself, Like that's not allowed. If if you if somebody says, like, why why is this gun in your car? And you refuse to answer, a lawyer can't go well, they can, but they'll be thrown out. You can't go to a judge and say, you know, we asked him and he refused to answer. The judge would be like, that's not an admission of guilt. Silence is never an admission of guilt. It's the Fifth Amendment. Yeah, it's the Miranda rights. You know, you have the right to remain silent. Yeah, and that's but that's really important.

54:45 But in the realm of public. Opinion, that doesn't matter. You look guilty, if you deny, you look guilty. If you're quiet, you look guilty. If you fail all I detect your test. Mm hm. That's just the. Way it is. Yeah, yeah, and and and but the part I meant to I was what I was saying about you burying the lead. What I meant to say was they show that the scene and it's super tense, and you see the machine doing its thing and the guy making his markings, and when he's talking to the cop, to the sheriff and the UH and the detective from out of town waters when he's talking to them and he seems just perplexed and like shocked. That's my favorite part because he seems like I just I they're all except Dallas's was inconclusive, but the rest of them, they seem pretty pretty dead on they didn't do it.

55:33 That is my favorite party entire part. Is that they build it up like that and then it's like, no, they're confused and shocked that the guys passed the polygraph about seeing the alien and not killing their friend, except for the one guy who it was inadmissible, probably because he was taking drugs or clenching his sphincter, which is one of the ways you can fool the polygraph. Yeah, so we were talking, well, you could throw it out really yeah, I mean, you have to be really good to give it. But the number one way I've heard is you take like a real you take like a sedative, and then answered like when they ask a question, you think of a different question and answer it. And if you get really good at it, you can pass, at least according to the shield, which I take all of my life advice from the cops.

56:20 Show the shield. I don't see why would why you shouldn't. So now they've the polygraph test hasn't really been hasn't. I don't believe they ever published it. But the cops are all are befuddled because they all really believe they didn't do it, and things are starting to calm down in the town a little bit. But also some bad news, like Rogers, they lost that contract. It's over, so now for real, how is he going to pay? How's he gonna pay the mortgage? How are they gonna get by? But on top of that, they're being accused of murder without any charges yet, but they're being accused. All of that is happening. But Rogers, on the positive side, is starting to connect with wife again. She is starting to realize like he needs her as much as she feels, you know, betrayed, that she needs him to pay the bills and take care of the things he said he would.

57:10 She's realizing like this is a really big thing and he needs our support because he also has two daughters, and all the scenes with them are really really cute. Yeah, speaking of the two daughters, though, he's now on the couch watching television kind of zoning out, and the phone rings. I wonder, I wonder. I guess we'll find out right after this. So the phone rings, but Roger's wife, he's like, she's like, oh, we get prank calls.

57:56 Yeah, we've been getting they've been increasing and it's a good fake out. It's a good play with your expectations because we've been seeing around town, you know, all the upologists and all of the different reporters and everyone, and like Mike's been getting stopped in the street. People have been talking to him, like the the courthouse or whatever department where they conducted the light detector tests, like it was like a paparazzi shit showt trying to get in and out of there. So to us, we think, like, Okay, they must be getting calls from reporters or whatever. And so she says, like it's been getting worse, and now they're starting to call in the middle of the night and it's always like the same person.

58:46 Well, and she said they were pranking. Yeah, these are prank calls. And I want to mention because not only are there a lot of journalists and stuff in town, but we're also noticing a small contingent of the town that is just getting really frustrated that these guys aren't getting charged already, that they're still walking around like it's it's pissing them off, it's making them feel unsafe, it's making them feel like their kids and are unsafe in this little this little uh hamlet. Yeah. So that's worth mentioning too, is that people are getting getting pissed off. Yeah. But this phone call, which sounds like a crank call, Rogers answers it, and the voice on the other end of the line is very weak, very weak. But the moment he hears the voice, he lights up and he says it's Travis. Yeah, and we smash cut to to the pickup truck and a few of the guys, not all of them, I don't think, but a few of the guys are all in the truck and they're and his younger sister and the younger so of course because she's she's been staying with Travis's family through this whole thing, Yeah, because which I believe is just her brother, his brother, but like because she's you know, very upset and worried about Travis. So they're driving in the rain, which I love the rain. The choice of rain was perfect for this sequence. They're driving in the rain and they're trying to figure out, like what is going on? Yeah, And as they're driving along, they're just looking for payphones because

1:00:17 they didn't get any information other than. He's at a payphone, and he's specifically Mike says, all he said is he's near a gas station. So they're driving past all the gas stations, not just in town, but around town. I think they said they're like miles out. Yeah, there's several miles into the I forget the next town over is. But they were like almost in the next town over. But they're driving past, seeing empty phone booths, and they keep driving and driving past and seeing empty phone booths. But eventually, as they're starting to say like this is stupid, like you know, you did all this over a prank call, he says, like, I'm pretty sure there's one more. There's another gas station on this road.

1:01:01 And as they go up, he's like, look, I was right. He's like, yeah, you're right that there was a gas station. But like we're wasting our time. And then all of a sudden they noticed that it looks like there's somebody near the door. And now the place is closed, there's somebody near the door, crouched down buck ass naked. Yeah, just like huddled there in the rain. They jump out of the car and run to check on him, and it is Travis. He looks pretty rough. He looks like he has not been having a very good time, and he's confused. Yeah, totally disoriented. And they tell him it's been what five days or four days? Five days? I think four or. Five days hadn't been super long, but it had been a while. And they tell him like, you've been gone this long, and he's barely comprehending it, and he just asks for water, and then they smash cut to him in the bathroom of this gas station, just suck sucking down water straight out of the faucet, yes, gulping it, big massive, And that's what you realize. That's one of the reasons he was speaking so weirdly is he was like he was parched completely, like he just and as they're trying to talk to him, he's not really responsive at all. The a far gentleman person. Turns out, they they gave him a heads up when they found him, and he's adamant, like, I need to ask him questions like how long were you up there? Did they speak in English? He's like asking all these questions and they're like, dude, you got to give him space. He's like, no, we have to ask these questions now. Before he forgets them like we have this is the key time to find

1:02:33 out information about what they're doing and what they want, which I love because I mean, sure that makes sense, but it also gives him like a little bit of a manic like are you insane? Yeah, kind of like a mad scientist vibe. Yeah that he's like, he literally says like we want to know what they want. It's like, oh, okay, yeah, mito. So they they eventually humor the guy and let him ask questions as long as he doesn't crowd Travis too much. But eventually they're like, all right, you're done. He's not answering your questions. And they take Travis to a hospital. Yeah, and he's in his hospital bed, but then Rogers goes to talk to him, sneaking in because visiting hours are over, and they specifically didn't want him to visit Travis because they're afraid that he might be coercing him or trying to give him another story. And that's when we start to realize that when they were talking about getting their stories straight, they really meant they didn't want to accidentally incriminate themselves, because they all kind of felt like it was their fault because they left him after he had been flung in the air. They thought he was dead, but no one, no one would get out of the car.

1:03:54 And that's something I did mean to mention earlier. But we just we were flying, but Travis out of the truck to get a better look at the lights yea, as they changed from red to green. And everyone was screaming at him like. Get back in here, like you a psycho, Like are you insane? You're gonna get killed. So when they came back and he was gone, they all got this sense of guilt to where the reason they wanted their stories to be straight was they were afraid that if somebody expressed how that went down differently than somebody else, it would implicate them or make it look like it was bullshit. Yeah, and I love that that is what the reality was. That they weren't hiding anything.

1:04:39 They were just trying to make sure they all told the truth. But they were afraid that they would be blamed anyway, even though they saw aliens. Basically yeah, because in their mind, it's almost like the best case scenario was like, okay, great, everyone believes us that there are aliens, and we left our friend there to die. The hand, which to them, they're like, well that would still be murder. So yeah, best case scenario is everyone believes us and we're still held liable for our friend's. Order, or we're just known as the assholes. Yeah, you know, the horrible, horrible people who would do that. So, now that Travis is back in the hospital, he's starting to feel a little bit better and he's starting to remember a little bit and he has that little heart to heart with Rogers that doesn't go exactly the way Rogers was hoping, but you know what is going the way I was hoping. This commercial break, so as Rogers starts talking to Travis and just kind of saying how glad he is that he's okay, Travis actually has something to say himself.

1:06:00 Yeah. Yeah, he doesn't remember much, but what he does remember is that after he got flung into the air by the light, they just left him there. They peeled off, and he even manages, you know, he's he's in bad shape, but he even manages to kind of like croak croak out, like you left me, and Mike, you know, tries to explain and he tries to say, like, no, it's not not necessarily that we left you. It's just like I had. Nobody wanted to get out of the car. Everybody felt they were in dangers. We were scared, so like. I yeah, like I drove away, but then I came back, which fair. But yeah, to to Travis, like they all just abandoned him.

1:06:52 There they did, and they did. Granted they didn't know for sure he was dead, but they did. Yeah. I mean they saw him thrown by nothing like eleven or twelve feet in the. Air, Yeah, and then fall to the ground and not move. Yeah. I mean it's pretty conclusive. It's a pretty startling situation. Yeah. And and of course obviously Mike is like, no, you don't. You don't understand. Like I came, I came back, I looked for you, and you were gone. Like I had to take the guys away, and when I came back, you were gone. So I wasn't like trying to leave you there. But in his defense, I mean, they had driven to two minutes away from him.

1:07:34 Yeah. When finally Rogers was like, I'm turning around right now. If you guys don't want to come with us, you can just start walking and I'll pick you up on the way back. Mm hm. So I mean he only had that, you know, that failing judgment or that failing loyalty for a very short amount of time. Yeah, before he realized like I didn't know that he was dead for sure, Like why. Did I need to go back and back? But then the moment they were all screaming and yelling and yeah and scared and saying go go get us the hell of you, We're all gonna die, like. Yeah, and and there is a it is kind of implied, like Mike does kind of say like you're the one who got out of the car or got out of the truck, like we all said don't get out of the truck and you did anyway, which is you know, obviously not very well received by Travis. Uh So he kind of turns away like he doesn't he doesn't even want to talk to his friend anymore. He doesn't, you know, can't stand him. And then the nurse kind of bursts in and like you can't be here. Visiting hours are over.

1:08:34 And I think that the the whole hospital sequence is great because we start getting little tiny flashes as Travis is being examined by the doctors, We're getting little flashes of his memories of what happened while he was gone, and that makes it even more effective when we do finally get to the big flashback reveal, because there's there's more context to it, and it does make the final feeling of being like surgical and you know, being being examined even worse because then you see like, oh, wow, he got examined by the aliens, and then the first thing that happens when he gets back to Earth is he gets examined the same way, in this very clinical way by all the doctors. It's very upsetting and unsettling.

1:09:30 Yeah, it reminds him of of what had just happened to him. And those little sequences, those little flashbacks, which you know are obviously instigated by him being pulled into a hospital, people surrounding him, looking at him, shining lights on him, they're they're combined with these memories he has of being in some kind of cave and being covered in these weird this weird liquid. I mean, we see so much happening so fast as far as the recall he's experien operiencing mm hmm, and it's very very creepy and unsettling. And this is when they're starting to really give the audience like, no, he was abducted by aliens, kids, and it is far scarier than you imagine, because I really do love that this movie is like a small town mystery that turns into an alien abduction thing. Like, this movie would be so insanely effective if you didn't know any if you like, if you didn't even know the title referenced aliens, yeah it would, but why would you watch it? But if you happen to watch it anyway, you'd be like, holy crap.

1:10:39 It would It would feel almost like a crime scene investigation. Movie because that's basically what it is. Yeah, yeah, which I love and I know you do as well, and it's it's one of those great lessons in kind of using tools from a cinematography cinematog cinematographic toolkit that's or cinemagraphs cinematic cinematic toolkit. Yeah, there we go. That's the word cinematic toolkit that is slightly different, So you know, having it lean heavily into a crime drama thriller space and still maintain these sci fi horror aspects throughout is very effective and it makes the storytelling even stronger because it's not relying just on the one note of this is this scary alien movie. It's this is a scary and alien movie. And here's how that would play out in the real world.

1:11:43 And here's how it did sort of sort of. Well, a lot of that stuff, I know was based somewhat on truth. I mean, he disappeared for days on end. Yeah, people thought he had been killed by his friends. A lot of that was real. I mean, that really did happen, which and it would make sense people would not assume that you're telling the truth if you say, freaking aliens did it. Yeah, They're just gonna be like, right, sure they did, Buddy. Oki Doki pokey. So that's that's worth pointing out too. And I think that's why I like the way they tell the story is the way it would have went down for the people involved, not the abducted one. Because Travis is he is he is a main character, but he's a main character in a in a in a not a non narrative way, but in a non sequential way.

1:12:35 He's a main character, but he's never in the main timeline until they find out he's not dead. Yeah, so up until then we see Travis all the time, but strictly in flashbacks. Yeah, we never see him during the current time of the main story plot, the main plot, so he's just a memory again and again and again and again. So we don't get to find out what happened to him or how it happened to him until he rejoins the main storyline because all we're doing is going by I mean, really, the entire film of that night is told via memories. Yeah, and his memories can't be recounted because he's not shown up yet. Yeah, he's not.

1:13:15 There to share it, which is very poetic because the book, you know, no matter how little or much inspiration they took, was his personal recounting, and I guess his friend's recounting I would assume of what had happened. Yeah, so it kind of it kind of adds up. I know, I absolutely agree. And it's it's very interesting the way because because this the story of the book, and you know, the book itself again, just like this movie has kind of become the archetype of alien abduction stories.

1:13:58 And when you think about alien abduction stories, whether you realize it or not, what you're probably thinking about is this account because it was so well known and it was one of the few accounts where like it wasn't just it wasn't a story that was just told around the town. It wasn't a story that was just told in like the local newspaper or in the national inquirer. It was something that got national attention. It got published, I believe, like you know, he did like several interviews. Oh ton, he's still I mean, I don't now, but I mean he was doing UFO conventions for ever. Yeah. So so it became part of like the public zeitgeist regarding alien abductions. And that's very similar with this movie.

1:14:47 Like I was talking about earlier, is like why people don't make those sci fi heavy horror movies that involve alien abduction is because this is the archetype, Like this is this is what you're going to be thinking about. Well, and to go back to the story in nineteen seventy five and all that, there is another element of the zeitgeist that plays a pretty big role in how people, especially Americans, felt about the concept of being abducted and being experimented on. That's really dark and people don't talk about it a lot, and I will, but after this we're back and I'm about to bring things down. Yeah, so yeah, just get ready. When you think about UFO, the height of the UFO phenomena being like the fifties and sixties, right, there are two elements of the fifties and sixties, alien and height, that have something in common.

1:16:04 Number one, the invasion concept, right, the invasion of alien beings. Okay, m hm. Well, at that time, we were beginning a very long Cold War with the Soviet Union, an enemy that is alien to us, to our way of life. The idea of how the Russians at that time, the Soviets were living very alien. I mean, the key concepts of communism, the part of the world they live in, just everything very alien. So there's that, but that's not the dark parts. That's the part everybody talks about. But if you look at that time period, what's before the Cold War, before Vietnam, what was one of the most influential things to happen in the world.

1:16:59 In the world the world wars? Well, World War Two was right before all of this, and one of the elements of World War Two that became very known and very public were the horrific experiments committed by Joseph Mangela and the Nazis, And if you think about that, it can get pretty creepy. I mean, obviously thinking about war atrocities creepy, But what I mean is they would do experiment They would scoop people up from wherever, and they would do experiments on them like they were animals. What do most of the depictions of aliens look like. They look like concentration camp survivors.

1:17:43 Yeah, they're bald. They forced them to shave their heads because they didn't want them to get lice. They're always skinny and frail. They're always so so slender. I feel like, and I don't know, maybe somebody else believes this too. This is somewhat my thing that I believe, but I feel like those wires just kind of got crossed. Like the visual idea of the horrors of a concentration camp got kind of combined with the idea of alien abduction. You know, instead of you being the skinny when it became because you see the pictures of all these bald, emaciated people standing around, that's what the image of the concentration camps is to people who obviously were not there. It just kind of joined the visual idea of being adopt abducted by aliens.

1:18:30 Yeah. Oh, I've never heard anyone like tie those together, but I can definitely see how that works. I won't claim I'm the first. I don't. I sincerely don't know. I feel like I've heard somebody say that some of the fear of alien abduction comes from the idea of Nazi medical experimentation. But I'm not one hundred percent if anybody has said that or not. But I've always kind of thought that that was an element because you have to look at you have to look at the time periods, and of course, you know, by the fifties when alien stuff was really really popular. Yeah, it had been like almost ten years since World War Two, but news didn't travel fast back then, Yeah, and something that horrific sticks around. Yeah, So sometimes I wonder if that's one of the reasons people became scared and therefore fascinated, because that's one thing about humans is once something scares you, it's that means very fascinating. It's interesting at the very least.

1:19:29 But that makes me wonder if that's an element to it as well. Well. And I've always heard I mean, there's obviously, of course, the there's the conspiracy theories that connect like Nazis and Aliens, and like, oh sure you know all of that, or the hollow earth theory that connects you know, Nazis in Aliens together, and then I've I have, of course heard like that. The Cold War death definitely played hugely into America's fascination with extra terrestrials aliens.

1:20:09 I would say, more so UFOs in particular than the literal extraterrestrial like the being like the beings like the rays or whatever. I think that was less so. But just the idea of of ships you don't recognize and missiles and that stuff. I mean, that's Cold War delirium entirely, and not just because that's a little harsh, because it's not just the people who are loucinating the stuff. It's because the US government was literally testing aircraft that looked like nothing anyone had ever seen before. Yeah, so, yeah, there was there was real unidentified flying objects and oh they were unidentified because the government hadn't been talking about that well.

1:20:51 And they pulled out such gems as swamp gas, which, from what I understand the situation and where that was said, that was retracted. No, it was not swamp gas. It's like, yeah, no, no, we we we all know we figured that out. We all woke up and had a brain in our heads. Swamp gas. But I mean now you just pull a Reddit and say do you have a carbon monoxide detector? But no, So so yeah, there there there was a lot to be afraid of. That kind of fed into that, and and the Cold warfares helped kind of keep that going.

1:21:32 But if you look at it, I mean the other element. I totally skipped over one massive element too, which is very World War two related, which is the atomic bomb. Yeah, the age of the atom was everything in science fiction. Everything was the nuclear this, or the adam the atomic this, or you know, it was always something related to those things as well, because people were scared absolutely shitless by seeing what man had wrought. Yeah, you know it was I can't even imagine what it would have been like to live in a world where there was no nuclear bomb and then there was a nuclear bomb. Yeah, that would be quite a change of pace in my opinion, in my humble opinion.

1:22:16 No, I absolutely have to agree. And that's that's kind of what has been interesting as a sci fie nerd is how how interrelated. The actual advancements of science have been with just our imagination and the stuff that we kind of you know, think about in the zeitgeist. So like Star Trek is a great example where you know, they've got like tricorders and stuff, and now we've got cell phones and and and you know, it's very interesting how innovation drives our imagination and simultaneously, our imagination drive innovation, and in the same vein our fears as a culture drive the stories that we tell each other. And that's one of the things is as we've been advancing so fast, one of the only places we can look that is still vastly unknown is space.

1:23:20 And that's why it's one of those things that has continually had those surges of interest as far as being something that we're you know, either scared of or something that we're telling stories about, is outer space and aliens because it's the great unknown. Well, when you look at science fiction, especially futuristic science at fiction not quite this kind, but when you look into futuristic science fiction, I mean it's very simple, look at where they say we're going, and you can track it back to where they are when they thought of it. Yeah, in culture, in time, and that can say a lot. Yeah. Yeah, so that's one of the reason sci fi holds up so much to scrutiny as well as horror.

1:24:05 Yea. But yeah, so now I think it's about time that we throw old Travis a welcome home party. But we'll do that right after this and we're back because the moment that everyone is waiting for when they're watching this film is about to happen. And it was awesome watching you watch it for the first time. But I was very very amused by just like I said earlier, how much of it I remembered, because this is a brutal, scary, wild scene. But it all starts as any good horror scene.

1:24:56 It all starts very mild manneredly because Travis is now finally home. The detective Waters talks to him at one point and seems to suspect him of something. Now, Yeah, because he suspects now that all of the guys came up with this plan and Travis was doing it to like get famous, yeah, and get rich off his store. Well, and he tells him that right after a kid came up to him and had him sign his newspaper. Yeah, So it does start to look that way. But what's most important is Travis is now well enough that he can go home, and they've set up a welcome home party, and in small town tradition, everybody it's a potluck and there is just enough food for five towns in this little house. So he's there. He's a little overwhelmed by everybody surrounding him, but he's doing okay until he goes under.

1:25:54 I love the way they do this. He goes under the kitchen table and he bumped and he starts having he was having a panic attack. He goes in and he bumps it and it tips over a bottle of maple syrup, which, by the way, is extra brilliant because I don't know why there would be maple syrup out. Yeah, there was like no pancakes, nothing, but. There may be something you'd want maple syrup for. Who knows, but it or maybe it was left over from breakfast. Yeah, but it tips over falls and as he's having his little, his little panic episode, the syrup slowly crawls across the table and starts dripping onto him, and boom, he is on that spaceship, covered in that weird go inside of this bizarre organic looking pod.

1:26:47 Yeah, it's like a cocoon. Yeah, a cocoon, but but it's a little bit wider than a cocoon, because it's like it's there is room for him to move around and stuff. But he's covered in this gelatinous goop. And he starts looking around, and he puts his hand out, and there's a membrane covering it, which he is able to push his hand through. Yeah, but as he tries to look out, he notices that there is an insanely long fall from where he is. He's in a wall of some sort in like a like almost like a I don't know how you put it, like not like a like like a honeycomb, almost on the inside, you know, because there's just it's all around. It's a circular space that goes up and down.

1:27:29 Yeah, Like it's like a big vertical tunnel. Yeah, And all of these cocoon pods are like very much like a honeycomb, are lining around the outside perimeter, you know, around this this tunnel, and you start getting as disorienting as it is, it becomes even more disorienting because he starts like almost floating as he's as he's digging his way out and you realize, like gravity does not exist in the same way here. Yeah, he starts he's about to fall out, and then as he falls out of that spot, he realizes he's not falling really, he's yeah, he's just kind of floating, like there may be a little gravity, but it's very very little mm hm. And this is the moment where I'm sure you realized that you were in for a serious scare, because he ends up punching through another membrane nearby, where he finds a man somehow still barely alive, who is basically just a torso.

1:28:34 Yeah, and like decomposing but still somehow alive. Yeah, with with like no no nothing in the cavity below his chest. Yeah, and he like even kind of reacts a kind of reach it from me. And he looks, honestly, straight out of a zombie movie. He looks like he's straight out of Day of the Dead. Yeah, very very scary, very shocking moment, and of course shocks him because he lands and is in his hand that goes right into the guy's guts. Yeah. Yes, he pulls out of there and he's trying to wipe the guts away, and he's trying to figure out what's going on, and to be discombobulated is an understatement. But as he tries to calm himself, he realizes, I guess a number one, I don't want to go into any more of those things, and number two, I don't want to be in one. So he starts making his way up, up or down.

1:29:26 Like that's the same as we can't We can't really know because he starts as he's climbing the cameras, you know, kind of changing angle a little bit, and he's floating a little bit, and then as he floats you can see his hair, Like we were even talking about it. It must have been wire work. But as he's floating, like his orientation will change and it kind of gives you this feeling that again, gravity doesn't really work the same here. If I had to guess, it was a combination of wire work and perspective shift like he would be. On a wire. But also the camera was sideways or whatever, so that you were getting two different kind of skewed views or whatever.

1:30:14 But it appears like he's going up like that's kind of what it looks like. Obviously, it doesn't up and down don't really matter. Very much. Yeah, but he notices a car key, which I believe was his car key, Yeah, floating up. He recognizes it. And as he's trying to grab it, all of a sudden, it's gravity is on and he's up high. Yeah, like it basically flips. So now he's looking at the floor of a room. So he manages to kind of well fall into what he thinks are a bunch of aliens. Well, well, he doesn't think they're aliens. We think they're aliens. Better way, they look like a bunch of aliens. They look like grays. They have the big black eyes, super skinny. But that's when were they reveal those are base suits because he looks into one and it's empty, which I thought was a really cool reveal to show like a classic gray alien and they'd be like, no, no, those are spacesuits, which is another of many wild you know UFO theories out there or alien extrarestrial theories out there. So he's trying to figure out what he's going to do next, and then we realize one of the suits is not empty, and he has quite the close encounter of the scary kind.

1:31:39 That's the best I got, Okay, but things are now going to escalate even further, I would. I think that's a very sweet way of saying that. I was going to say a lot, a hell of a lot, and we'll tell you all about it after this. So as Travis is startled by this alien when he thought he was in a room full of empty suits of some kind that looked like aliens to us, all of a sudden one of them grabs him. And this is the part where it truly it doesn't relent until basically the resolution.

1:32:35 Yeah, it gets super crazy because one of the suits kind of like almost comes to life and grabs him, and he starts like wrestling with it and trying to get away. And then a bare hand grabs him and it's vaguely human like, but it doesn't have nails, and like the joints seem kind of wrong, and it starts it starts like dragging him to the ground. And then another pair of hands come and we see there's two naked aliens, and again playing with those expectations that we have because they're naked, they're not in the suits, and we start seeing just how human but not human they are.

1:33:18 They have no hair, and their brows are very are very pronounced, their noses are bulbous. They all look the same, but they also don't look the same. They do look like they're individuals, but we don't see them very long, very often. Yeah, and which is super effective. You know, I'm a huge fan of the less you can show of a monster in a movie, the more scary that monster tends to be. And they do that very well because we're almost getting it from Travis's point of view, where we're only you know, you'll only see a glimpse of their face in full light before you know they're back in the shadows, or we'll only see a little bit of their and just enough to make us feel really unsettled at how different it is, but not long enough for us to like really get a good beat on them and really figure out, like what they're like. Except all we know is they're not like us.

1:34:15 But I don't think that's even remotely as scary as some of the other stuff that's about to come. For instance, as they now more aliens have come in and they begin to drag him through this slightly slightly more gravity gravity rich area, but still gravity is different. They're dragging him through this obscenely long filthy hallway. And that's one thing I noticed too. Everything's filthy, yeah, like dirty looking. Yeah, it's covered in grime and goo and ooze and it's covered in trash. Well that's what I was getting to about, like one of the things that would scare you, that like stuck with me, please you.

1:34:57 As as they're dragging him along and he's like trying to get a hand hold on the ground on anything so that he can try and save himself. We start seeing shoes, items, eyeglasses, items of clothing. We start seeing jewelry. Clearly human by the way, I mean like no very recognizable space rebox. I mean like we're seeing like stuff that looks like it's been there for years, if not decades. It looks very old. And worn, and and the idea being that, yeah, they've done this a lot for a very long time. But talk about a Holocaust symbol. Mm hmmm is all I'm saying.

1:35:39 The clothes and the shoes again, you go, yeah, you definitely go back to that Holocaust symbology of the long Long corridor and all of those belongings just discarded onto the ground, which is very powerful, you know, is a powerful metaphor and It was an extremely powerful story telling visually because you you really start to understand between this and between this the tube of pods full of decaying bodies, you start to understand like the scope and the magnitude of these abductions, and that makes it even scarier.

1:36:23 Oh yeah, definitely, without a doubt. Yeah. So they drag him into this this at the end of the hall. It's like this circular examination room, and they throw him down into the center of the room and he's fastened down like these straps just come up out of the ground. And hug him. And then uh, they cover him in like this film almost it's like it's a membrane and it yeah. It's another membrane and it totally encases him his body and just like vacuum seals to him, so he can't even like move, and it you feel so claustrophobic because you can see it constricting, like he's trying to scream and you can see it constricting into his mouth. And then and then they just poke a hole in where his mouth is and one hole where his eye is, which, for some reason to me psychologically, there is something even scarier about you can only see out of one eye makes it even worse.

1:37:26 Well, and and making you able to see what's going on is also scary. You know that was was that on Dexter. There was some movie, it might have been Dexter where that was like an element of killing somebody as they put him. Oh no, no, I'm thinking of law abiding citizen where he's he's cutting up the body parts of the guy who killed his daughter and his wife, and he puts up a giant mirror over top of him with a photograph of his daughter and wife so that the guy can watch him. Oh, he tells him, if he closes his eyes will kint of eyelids off. That movie's that. But and then they reveal later like his eyelids were cut off. Oh god, yes, so you would see it. So I mean there's also some cruelty to being able to see what's going on. But what we realize is there's even more cruelty coming for his eyes.

1:38:16 But first, as he's gasping for air because they've cut open around his mouth, they begin to feed a They put like a speculum almost in his mouth, his mouth open, and they start feeding a tube all the way down. It just keeps going and it's and it's a metal tube that kind of it has like ribs ridges on it as it's going further and further down his gullet. And that's something that you know, if you've had any you know, moderate hospital stay, that's going to freak you out because you've probably experienced something like that or seen something yeah well, I mean or something you know. Just so we're already getting mortified by all of that, and now we're starting to understand, like, Okay, clearly we're heading into the alien experimenting on a human thing. You know, obviously that's where we're heading. This is an alien abduction after all, so why wouldn't they. But it's it's so upsetting because this membrane makes him look almost like he's not a human anymore. He's just parts.

1:39:28 Yeah. Yeah, And when you have surgery done, they do put a sheet over you so that they aren't distracted by anything other than what they're working on in the section of your body they're working on. When I had when I had minor jaw surgery, they put a sheet over my head, so I was just a mouth. Yeah, although they told me later that was mostly so that I didn't see all the blood because I was awake. Oh that's right. They said that it just usually in dental procedures, you're not bleeding like that, Like they're not pulling drills out covered in blood. And they're like, it can cause people to panic or freak out even though they're not. Feeling any pain. Yeah, and I agree. I would. I much enjoyed looking at that white sheet instead. Honestly, no, I did. But now they put a similar piece, a similar device on his eye, holding his eyelids open. And then the biggest, most upsetting part of the entire film right after this. So I've seen this movie at least a couple times, and you had only seen it the once.

1:40:46 I'm going to give you the honors of talking about the most nightmare fuel part of the entire movie. Ah. So they've got him, you know, down on the examination table. He's covered in this membrane. They've got his mouth and his eyeball speculum to open, and then uh, this this thing starts coming down from the ceiling and it's like it's almost coming down. It almost looks like a at first, it almost looks like a telescope or something, the way it's telescoping down and all of this white, oopy, goopy stuff starts coming out of it.

1:41:30 I don't remember that. You don't remember the because he's like the. White goo came out of his eye open. Oh, and it wasn't It was very milky. It was like gooey, milky, gross stuff. That That was the first thing that started making an impression because I was like really upset by this liquidy goop goo touching his eye, watching and watching it. Because it was filling up the cavity. Yeah, it was like filling up his eye. And this thing starts to scoping down and with each section it gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and then this needle comes out right over his eye and it's just hovering.

1:42:12 And what makes it even worse is it starts out is like a mildly large needle where you'd go like, oh wow, that's a pretty big needle, and then it keeps extending until it's like I swear the thing must have been like nine inches long. Maybe very wrong, Yeah, it was extremely long. Yeah, and it the length of time it just hovers over his eye as he's trying to blink, and then it just presses in slowly and the. Entire time, we're cutting to these aliens who, while they're obviously animatronics, they have expressions, they furrow their brows, they look closer, they're they're you know, very curious. And that's the big thing. There's no sense of anything other than interest and curiosity.

1:43:04 Yeah, there's no malice. No, it's just it's it's just huh hmmm. Can they get a better look at that? Yeah, which, again, the clinical feeling makes it worse. Sure, I think there's there's something psychologically where if something is malicious or mean, or we can identify it as being uh ill spirited, we can handle that. That's because that's human. No, because yes, it is is a human experience. We we we can comprehend it. It tracks for us, and so at least we can go like, Okay, I don't like this, but at least I can understand it.

1:43:49 But this, this clinical, this cold, clinical curiosity is very different from our curiosity, but also not so different. And again it goes back to those you know, the Nazi experiments. Once you're used to something, it's just another day. Yeah. So yeah, very you know, it's it's scary, beyond scary, it's deeply unsettling because it's kind of this this reflection, and it makes us feel like, oh. What would it be like to just be a test subject, to be a lesser life form? Yeah, no, that's that's really what is scary because as humans, we are always at the top of the food chain. We're always we're always the most intelligent and cunning we are the world, and to not be is a very scary concept because that you're right, they're looking at it like you might look at a fish. Yeah, that you're that you that you're you know, just kind of looking at going like what is it doing?

1:44:54 What are those things on the side of its head? And that's something that you know, people who claim to have been abducted by UFO say a lot is that it's like a fisherman catches you and then just throws you back. Yeah, you know, I always like that old stand up to me a joke, the comedy joke that was like, I wonder what the fish say to each other when they when they get back, when they get thrown back, they're like, I saw this thing and all this. Stuff, and. Right, sure you did, okay, but no, it's a very dehumanizing feeling to have the concept of your pain, your discomfort, your fear, just completely not understood. And that is and that's why I love that they put so much effort into those aliens faces so that they could effectively show an emotion. The wrong emotions. Yeah, yeah, no concern, no concern, no annoyance, no joy, just curiosity. Yeah, that is so unbelievably terrifying to just be a big hunk of meat on the slab. That is something that makes it stick with you so much. And I really can't overstate if you're listening to this and you even watch the movie, yet once they put that membrane all over his body, the movie becomes truly hellish nightmare stuff, like it really does.

1:46:15 It's just there's something so horrifying about that. And one of the things I love about sci fi is the idea of going beyond what we what makes sense to us. So it's there's no straps, there's no rope, there's no chains. It's something organic, it's something wet, it's something else like I. I you know me, I I love to riff on anything you give me, but not just humorously like I will you know you put me in a situation and be like, are you how this could make sense, and I'll do it. Like and like, for instance, the whole idea of like how everything looks dirty, everything is grimy. It's probably because our understanding of germs and theirs are completely different to them. They're like, there are no germs here. We know for a fact, all germs are dead. Yeah the end, Like who cares if it's dirty or whatever, Like yeah, we don't there's no germs, yeah the end, we don't care. Yeah, Like like in our world, you know, getting rid of germs means cleaning hard surfaces down to the to the you know, down to the hard part of the surface to where it's not porous, and then disinfecting it and drying it. There's a it's a whole process, and if you want to disaffect something porous, it's an even longer difficult process. To them, it's just like there's no there's no Yeah, there's no microbes here.

1:47:26 Yeah we got the we got the laser thing. It kills all the microbes or. It's just we just like lift it in the vacuum space when you know every now and then and that just kills everything. I don't know, Like I'm not an alien, I'm not okay, But now as the needle goes into Travis's eye, we're back with Travis on Earth, and now we fully understand what happened that night question mark, because the time we don't timeframe of how long he was he was kept. We know that he was dehydrated. They didn't feed him, they just kept him as basically alive as possible. And now, oddly enough is the time for healing after this. So now that Travis has had his flashback, so that we all as the audience, understand what's really happened, He's back at the party, these people are around, and now it is over, but he has to live with these memories. Which that's another scary element for sure, is the idea of being of what trauma does to us.

1:48:46 So now we go into even more human territory, ironically after you know, all the aliens, because now things calm down, there's no inquiry any more, the police stop sniffing around, people kind of go back to living, and we find out that Mike Rogers has left his wife and is living up in the mountains just kind of solitude, because I think he had enough of the way people had treated him when they thought he'd killed Travis, and of course Travis doesn't want anything to do with Mike because he feels Mike is the one who abandoned him. And we end on this really great scene where Travis drives up to Mike's place and they start talking. We find out that that Travis did marry Mike's sister and they're about to have their second kid, which surprises Mike. He's like, you're about to be an uncle again, and he's like again, He's like, nobody told you. He's like, I've been up here.

1:49:45 I don't get a lot of visitors. And they decide to do something really interesting. Travis has let me take you for a ride, and they go out to where it happened in the broad daylight, and he just tells him like, I understand I shouldn't have got out of the car and I would have been scared senseless, and they just have a moment where they kind of become friends again and except that both of them have been through hell and both of them need a friend. Yeah, it's a very sweet ending as the film. Really, that's it. That's that's the resolution of the film. And we do find out that eventually all all of the men took a polygraph again and they all passed, including Dallas. There are a few little snippets like that, you know, but that's that is Fire in the Sky one of the scariest alien movies I've ever seen, and it's not there's very little alien in it, but boy, when it's there, it does the work, yeah, of scaring the shit out of you. It came out, like I said, in nineteen ninety three, it did nineteen point nine million dollars at the box office against a fifteen million dollar budget, so it was relatively a box office flop. But it's been very well received. It was not well received when it came out, but it's become very well by critics. But it's very well received now. But a lot of people had had a lot of the negative things they said about it were like, oh, it's great once they get

1:51:16 in the spacecraft. I disagree. The actors were great. Every one of the people in the town was great. It was really engulfing. And what you the movie wouldn't be as scary if they were on that craft more. Yeah, yeah, it would have felt like it. It would have felt like it diluted the experience. If it would have drawn it out because I think the movie is only like one hundred and nine minutes long. It goes by it a pretty fast clip, and I feel that if they would have drawn out being on the spacecraft, it wouldn't have been effective because the scarcity of it, the feeling of being totally totally disoriented with Travis for the brief like six minute eight minute sequence, which that feels like, Yeah, it feels so long because it's so gruesome.

1:52:15 I feel like you would get desensitized to it. Honestly, yeah, it would, and it would become normal. Yeah, it would lose its effectiveness. And being such a short feature of the film is what makes it so powerful. I agree, And it makes it stick. It makes it stick with you. The fact is, I think the storytelling is strong, and I think that it would be weakened by it being like a NonStop sci fi or a NonStop horror movie. I mean, it's already a thriller drama. I saw. One of the big critics had said that while he liked how gut wrenching and scary the abduction scenes where he felt like it couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a horror movie a drama movie or science fiction movie.

1:53:00 And I agree, except that I think that's what makes the movie awesome. Yeah, I agree, is that it is a drama about people. And you know, granted, like we've mentioned many times already, based on a true story element is kind of scurl us at best. I mean, it's based on a book that may or may. Not have happened. I'm not a believer personally, but whatever, But it is a movie about people and how people react to the extraordinary, especially people who live every day in the ordinary. Yes, and that's what I think makes it have extra staying powers. When you're a kid, you'll remember those scenes forever, but as an adult, you can appreciate the way a community was just torn apart, and the idea of losing your friends and holding grudges and growing and learning to handle trauma. Yeah, so that's my thought. What about you, No, I.

1:54:05 Have to I definitely have to agree. You've often said, and I have to agree with you that the final scene and the final shot of a movie can reveal oftentimes what that movie is actually about. And I think that Fire in the Sky was a great example, because the closing scene is all about Travis and Mike reconciling after healing from this trauma, and you really do start to get that feel from the movie that the extraordinary circumstances could have been anything. It didn't necessarily have to be aliens. What this movie was truly about was about the extraordinary circumstances and how the town dealt with it.

1:54:58 Yeah, how and how friendships? You know, how how hard it is to be loyal, how hard it is to own up to your mistakes, how hard it is to make decisions under pressure and live with the consequences. Mm hmmm. I think those are all major parts of what the theme of the film is about, or the thesis. I guess, I guess that's the theme. Or no, I guess that's the thesis. Now the theme is space aliens. I suppose, Yeah, the theme is space aliens. Sorry the small town drama. Oh fine. So with that all being said, if you haven't seen Fire in the Sky, I really do think you should watch it. It's one of those movies that didn't get a fair shake originally, and I'm glad people are appreciating it. I'm glad I got to sit down and watch it again and talk about it a bit and talk about how scary aliens are. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention really very quickly that Nope.

1:55:50 The Jordan Peele movie is about one of the other major theories about UFOs that UFO people have, which is that UFOs aren't spacecraft. They're giant animals you can fly around, and the reason they abduct people is they eat them. So if you've never seen Nope, really good movie and a great horror sci fi kind of alien movie, but not in the way you'd expect. Yeah, So that's you know, that's it for this cutting deep into horror. But we want to mention that we'll be back much sooner than normal. We're trying to find a groove here in life and in this podcast, so to talk to you, Spooky's a little bit more about fun horror movies.

1:56:33 What do we have coming next, Rach, Well next, And it's funny because you mentioned it toward the beginning of the show, But my fault, you're a one trick pony and you just want to do more horror sci fi. Ah, I just love horror sci fi so much. So next we're going to be doing Event Horizon. Yes, and that is I consider that a relatively modern classic horror film. Yes, that one's pretty good. You've you've shown it to me and I was blown away, which is why I definitely wanted to make sure that we cover it. It's a classic. It stars Laurence Fishburne and Sam Neil and it is basically a science fiction Pandora's Box kind of concept where what if dark matter and faster than light travel could open a not only open or cut through the fabric of space, but what if what was on the other side was basically the thing that all scholars and philosophers based hell on. Basically, Yeah, but I'm making it really simple. The tagline was infinite space infinite terror, which is cheesy, but it gets the job done.

1:57:43 It's effective. Yeah. So, but we do really appreciate you guys joining us. It's been really cool to do the show, to bring the show back again. We always bring it back at least around Halloween time because there's so many horror movies and we all want to watch them. So but thank you guys again. If you enjoy what we did here tonight and you want to email us, you can do so at Weekly Spooky at gmail dot com. We love film recommendations. All kinds of things like that. We're totally down for it. If you want to support us in a very direct way, you go to Weeklyspooky dot com slash join join our Patreon for as little as one dollar a month, and that would be awesome. Make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcasting apps and leave a five star rating.

1:58:24 Yeah, so I'll give you the last word, Rach. The truth is out there. Well, we're gonna get sued.