Dark Encounter

Exactly one year after a little girl was mysteriously abducted from her house and family, bright lights begin to appear around the area - and, there is no doubt that it is a UFO. It does not take very long before a few more people disappear. The little girl’s parents are determined to find out what these visitors from another world are up to, and what they have done with their daughter. Dark Encounter is initially evocative of a family-based science fiction thriller, with an almost Amblin-Esque ambiance, and which was probably greatly inspired by Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as the title and visual side of the movie suggest, however, it then gradually turns into a boring one-trick-pony worthy only of being an episode of a television science fiction series in the ‘90s. For most of the movie, the whole thing stays stuck on the mysterious phenomena, and people are just running around the houses and the woods in a confused state. The plot starts progressing at the very end when the point of why the alien visitors showed up is revealed, and at that moment the movie becomes such unconscionably naive nonsense it makes you roll your eyes in disbelief. Add to that the ten-minute slow-motion epilogue, which, accompanied by moving music played on stringed instruments, is supposed to bring the audience to tears, however, only turns out to be a very cheap ploy for provoking an emotional response. [Sitges 2019] (07/10/2019)