Chariots of the Gods?, dir. Harald Reinl (1970)

NIKKI says:
Okay, you got me.

How can you not walk away from this little movie and not believe in aliens? I think I've been hornswaggled. Why did Steve so desperately want me to see this film? Because he knew there was no turning back, no fighting the "facts" raised here.

There's a spaceman in an ancient painting! An actual space man! With a space ship! Has anyone explained that yet? They reckon they explained the Easter Island mystery, but what about Spaceman in Painting!

Yeah, this movie got me fired up. I've been living with my head in the sand! I never considered, "god" might be a spaceman. Although it makes a strange kind of sense. In the beginning of this film, we're reminded of just how commonplace is the idea of replicating idols. An isolated tribe, in the movie, see a plane flying overhead for the first time, and recreate its image with bamboo, waiting for it to come back. Is this what happened on Easter Island? Does it explain the ancient Japanese Dogu? It's a compelling theory, because it makes so much sense.

What doesn't make sense is how the pyramids were built. Steve tells me he's seen a show that presents a convincing, Earth-based theory. In this movie, there are walls and building all over the world, built long before machinery and cranes, that defy all reason. How do 500 ton boulders stack on top of each other? How were towers made, carved from one piece of rock, standing 50 feet in the air? How did that happen? How did they carve and build with few tools and equipment? And, to top it off, why do so many ancient drawing look like alien beings? It's impossible to ignore -- not necessarily that Van Daniken (whose theories the film outlines) is wholly correct, but that there is a possibility that all is not as we might like to suspect.

This, frankly, is the closest I've come to believing aliens have interacted with us at some stage. Why don't they do it anymore? What's different? Why are they so secretive, only coming into women's rooms at night? When will they come back?

This movie opened my mind. It's slightly cheesy, and jumps to wild conclusions at times, (lines on a field -- it's most certainly an intergalatic landing strip!), but it's wonderfully thought-provoking. Especially for someone like me, who loves the idea of alien men coming to Earth and helping out the locals with their big walls before, as Ezekiel so clearly outlines in the Old Testament, jumping in their ships, hitting the gas, and zooming away.

3/5

STEVE says:

This is another one that I remember being better than it actually was. Cheesy and dated, much of it looked like a travelogue, with long stretches of scenery and local colour before the narrator jumped in and told us where we were and what we were looking at. A fascinating look at some of the mysteries of our world - Easter Island, the Pyramids, etc - but it's very heavily opinionated and comes off sounding kind of silly.

The question this doco poses is "Was God an Astronaut?" It's already convinced that God was, indeed, and astronaut (not an alien, mind you), and goes on to show us proof of this posit, rather than looking at what evidence there is, scientifically, and coming to a conclusion based on that.

There was an updated version of Chariots made for ABC TV in 1997, hosted by Home Improvement's Al, but it's not available on DVD. Even if it's all bullshit, it has to be better than the original.

1.5/5

Intruders, dir. Dan Curtis (1992)

NIKKI says:
Today was Alien Day, or, I'm convinced of it, "Steve's attempt to finally make Nikki believe in aliens." It didn't work with Intruders, although the film raised some interesting questions, if what happened to Mary and Leslie is true, of course, as the film suggests.

This one sets itself apart from others with similar subject matter -- Communion, Fire in the Sky -- with female abductees as the focus. Apparently, aliens have visited the both of them throughout their lives, poking them and prodding them, to form a greater understanding of the human species. It's suggested at the film's end that there's a reason for all the abducting that is really quite scary, mostly because of how its shot than the fact it might be true.

Man, these women go through some terror. They get cut and beaten, things shoved in their nose, Leslie gets impregnated. I like to look at the film as a parable of the feminist movement -- Mary and Leslie, one from Hicksville and one from Los Angeles, struggle and fight their male oppressors who only want to examine them, comfort them, or cure them of any wild thoughts. Consider: Mary doesn't want to tell her old boy husband about the abductions (she used to drink, you know) because she fears looking a fool. Leslie winds up in an institution because no one will take her seriously (think Girl, Interrupted). And then when the doctors finally accepts Leslie's story, get this, she backs down and says no, no, she made it all up -- women denying their personal truths to appease men!! See? It all works. Did women invent alien abduction to cope with gender-related stress issues? Now, we're hitting on something.

Then why do so many men get abducted? I'll have to look into it.

You don't hear about alien abductions too much anymore. I wonder if these women still experience random nightly visits?

So, Intruders was an enjoyable three-hour movie, with lots of spooky parts, a few cheesy parts, and left me with something to think about. As I said, I don't think it convinced me about aliens, but it did make me want a visit from them myself. Just cause it might shake things up a bit.

3/5

STEVE says:
The idea of alien abduction has always been a favorite fantasy of mine, ever since I saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind as a kid. As horrifying as it was to see little Barry taken by the aliens (though not for Barry himself), it was all so exciting and fascinating. And it kick-started something in my seven-year-old brain. As I grew up, I read the books, I saw the movies, I even looked into the US Government's Majic project - which does exist, aliens or not - and have drawn my own conclusions on the subject of abduction.

Intruders was part of that development - this movie and Budd Hopkins' book - but it's better in memory than it was in reality, I'm afraid to say. I don't know if it was production value, the script, or what, but it didn't gel for me the way it used to - if it ever did - and indeed looked rather silly.

But maybe that's exactly how they wanted it to look...

Something to think about.

2/5