Who Woulda Thunk? An Alien Movie That's Not Corny!
Remember this movie? Pretty damn cool, isn't it? Whether or not you believe the story being told, it still made for an entertaining movie. And admittedly, having the "Based On A True Story" line attached does tend to add a bit more creepiness to an often told Hollywood tale.
I remember this being marketed more as a science fiction film, but other than the premise and the sequence near the end of the film that shows Walton's experience aboard the ship, this is really more of a mystery/drama.
The film tells the tale of Travis Walton and his logger buddies who witness a UFO in the mountains one night in 1975 while driving back to town. Travis leaves the truck, is shot by a light from the ship and disappears. His buddies return to town to tell the story, but soon find themselves suspects in Walton's disappearance. But no matter how hard they try to convince friends, family and law officials of what they saw, they find the town turning against them and the whole thing turning into a media circus that nearly ruins their lives. When Travis is found alive five days later, it opens a whole new can of worms. Now no one is suspected of murder, but are now accused of trying to pull a huge hoax(ya just can't win when you get abducted, can ya?).
It's a fascinating movie that could have come off as corny, but ends up being rather effective. Good performances all around by a cast of mostly character and lesser known actors including Peter Berg(writer/director of Very Bad Things and star of Wes Craven's Shocker), Craig Sheffer(Nightbreed), Henry Thomas(E.T of course!!), D.B. Sweeney(The Cutting Edge and Spawn) and Robert Patrick(everyone's favorite liquid metal robot assassin). Sweeney may be the figure which the film revolves around, but a good chunk of the film belongs to Robert Patrick, who does a damn good job in a dramatic role. Sweeney does a fantastic job of showing sheer terror in the spacecraft scenes, as well as his post-traumatic state. I've always felt that both Sweeney and Patrick are horribly underused actors. The star power here is James Garner as the detective working on the case. He doesn't believe a damn word of their story-even when a polygraph test shows they are all telling the truth-and is hellbent on discrediting and exposing them as fakes.
The alien sequence at the end of the film is very effective and creepy. This sequence could have sunk the movie if handled wrong, but thankfully it works damn well. Granted it's been Hollywood-ized and differs from Walton's actual account of what happened to him, but movies have to be sensationalized, right?
If you didn't catch this one the first time around(I don't remember it making a huge splash at the box office), I'd highly suggest seeing it. Hell, I'd highly suggest seeing it even if you have seen it before. It just might make a believer out of ya.

Makes you believe
I saw a trailer for fire in the sky when I was young, can't remember how old but between ten and thirteen. I've always had a fear of the "Grey" style of aliens, mostly because I've always believed that these particular kinds of aliens exist. Maybe it's just me, maybe I've watched too many discovery channel and Learning channel specials on alien abductions. But the trailer alone gave me nightmares as a kid, and I've been wanting to see it ever since.

At least once a year I go looking for the movie in stores and at local movie rental places like Blockbuster, to no avail. not on DVD VHS or any other media. So this year I said to myself: "that's it! I'm just going to find it online." One amazon purchase later and I'm watching a movie that's been on my mind for several years for the first time. and it won't be the last.

Fire In The Sky is a movie about a man who was once abducted by aliens. He was absolutely traumatized by the event, and had amnesia about it as well, but through a series of flashbacks he gets his memory of the event back. As he gets his memories of the event about rhe spacecraft back it's depicted to the viewer.

It's quite a good movie with stellar performances, and engaging characters. I highly recommend it. Especially to anyone that's a fan of alien movies.

Fire in the Sky
First i would like to say that parts of this film were made here locally in oregon.

This film was of it's time a great sci-fi. DB sweeney plays a great roll as the abducty. if you haven't seen this film it's great. I have been looking for this all over and finally found here.

This is suppose to be a true story,
snd it may well be. The acting was ok, but too many flared nostrils. James Garner looks good for his age, but, all the suspects seemed to do was take lie detector tests, it was boring. The director should have done more with what Travis saw on the space ship. That was a lot more interesting, as a matter of fact it didn't look all that sanitary for a operating room. The whole ship looked pretty dirty, the aliens may be advanced but they sure are slobs. Enjoy!

Great Movie
I am old enough to remember when this incident happen in the mid 70's. It made the national news during the 74-75 UFO flap across america. The film captures the mid 70's time period well. The end of the movie with the spaceship scenes, while entertaining, I take with a grain of salt.