User reviews

I remember watching this on video for my 10th or 11th birthday. That little demented dummy scared the p**s out of us! Now, I was never a horror fan and had never really seen a horror flick before that, so my sense of 'scary/not scary' had yet to be tarnished. So, if you have a 10 year old who isn't into slasher horror flicks, but wants something a little scary, go for it. (We also watched the 80's version of "Invaders from Mars" and thought it was pretty cool--for what it's worth.)

at the time this film was made, it was cool for us "military brats." one of our own was in this film (actually, two). but anyway, i went to school on a military base in Stuttgart,Germany with josh morrell and ray kaselonis. my group of friends thought we were so cool because we went to see the movie in German (actually, it was pretty amazing that a bunch of middle school kids could actually understand what they were saying in German). it is nostalgic to see this again but can't believe how dorky it is! nevertheless, this film is a piece of our heritage as military brats at robinson barracks. it would be nice to know where these guys are now...

Set in Virginia Beach, 9-year-old Joey Collins (Joshua Morrell) and his mother Laura (Eva Kryll) are morning the loss of Joey's father. One night unexplained phenomena start happening when many of Joey's toys start moving and turning on by themselves including a toy telephone that Joey comes to believe allows him to speak to his deceased father. Other kids at school including bully Bernie (Matthias Kraus) mock Joey for this, and both Laura and Joey's Teacher Martin (Jan Zierold) show concern which is only exacerbated by Joey displaying telekinetic abilities. As time goes on, a malevolent entity in the form of a ventriloquist Dummy (Jack Angel) begins confronting Joey and threatens Joey's mother if he keeps using the toy phone which the Dummy claims isn't his father on the other end.

Joey (retitled Making Contact for the Roger Corman release) is the second film from director Roland Emmerich. After having seen and been impressed with Steven Spielberg's E. T. in 1982, Emmerich decided his next film would be a horror film that incorporated many of the techniques seen in 80s American blockbusters of the Spielbergian mold. Despite being a German production, the film was shot in English as Emmerich wanted to target an international audience after his first film The Noah's Ark Principle hadn't been a big success at the German box office. Emmerich recruited most of the actors from U. S. military bases in Germany, and used his contacts to friends in the United States, who helped him with suggestions and props, to create the American look of the film. The effects work in Joey was done by Hubert Bartholomae, with whom Emmerich had collaborated on The Noah's Ark Principle, who had to build up a new studio to experiment with different ways of creating the effects needed for the film. For a low budget production of 3.5 million Deutsch Marks, Roland Emmerich certainly captures the look and feel of 80s Spielberg productions except for the script which is a confusing hodgepodge of ideas that aren't fully formed.

In terms of the effects work and look of the film, Emmerich certainly has created a film that encompasses everything you remember about that whimsical 80s Spielbergian style of filmmaking seen in Close Encounters, E. T. and its various contemporaries. The cast not being made of professional actors (and you can certainly tell from some of them) does make it difficult to be sucked into this film storywise, but even good actors would have a hard time selling the material here. According to Roland Emmerich's Biography by Jo Muller, Emmerich wasn't all that concerned with the actual story in the film so much as the look and effects work (and you can tell). While on a purely visual level there's a lot to appreciate in the film, the movie doesn't have any real substance to it and is just a loose assortment of ideas crudely daisy chained into a narrative. Despite Emmerich allegedly being inspired by E. T., Joey plays more like a weird mixture of Poltergeist, Carrie, and the Anthony Hopkins horror film Magic. The actual "why" as to what's happening is never established and despite the Dummy routinely saying the thing on the other side of the phone isn't Joey's father we're never given any idea as to what it is on the other side of the phone and the Dummy keeps acting stereotypically evil and cackling so there's no clear motivation for what's going on. The adult characters also take what's going on a little too well to the point that this feels like someone made a Zucker Abrahams Zucker type parody of Spielbergian blockbusters in the vein of Airplane! Or Top Secret but for some reason cut out all the jokes and played it straight.

I guess in terms of weird 80s timecapsules of these kinds of filmmaking tropes, there is a certain novelty to seeing them portrayed in a funhouse mirror image of themselves by way of Emmerich's complete lack of subtlety (complete with some stuff that would be a copyright nightmare with all the Star Wars, Disney, and other licensed merch that adorns the sets). But the story's such an unfocused mess portrayed by inexperienced actors that it does become a bit of a slog to sit through.

Now I have to admit it... "Joey" gave me the creeps as a child. Before watching it in recent times, I thought about it as a chilling, fairy tale of terror.

Now, to be objective, "Joey" is a movie that should be enjoyed by a younger audience because it's indeed a movie directed for a younger audience. Not to be redundant but as a kid you are easily impressed and scared by things like talking dummies or evil dolls.

"Joey" isn't meant to be scary and now as a grown-up I can only recommend it for a younger audience or for fans of movies involving dummies.

Still, I am pleased with the good memories I have towards this movie.

I dreamed of interrupting this movie halfway through and gouging my eyes out with a fork. That which is seen, cannot be unseen. I always had this sneaky feeling that INDEPENDENCE DAY was really crudely scripted and directed ... this movie confirmed it for me. The director can't direct. The final product is a confusing mish-mash of E.T., POLTERGEIST and about fifty other films the premises were ripped off from. I can't understand the other reviews calling this movie original because everything in it was derivative. It is as if the script review called for every single popular film of the past ten years to contribute some elements to the story.

Terrible. Really lousy. Shameful. I would have recommended this director never work again but he made one of the biggest financial blockbusters of all time. That movie was even worse than I remember, in hindsight after watching this turkey.

Director Roland Emmerich is nowadays best known as the man behind blockbusters such as "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow", big budget science-fiction films where he has shown a mastery for the use of grandiose and awe-inspiring visual effects. While he may not be the most original and artistic director, Emmerich has truly developed a style of his own, a style that owes a lot to his spiritual guides, the great 80s masters of fantasy, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg; and as this little early film named "Joey" proves, it's a style that Emmerich has been developing since the early years of his career, back when he was a young director in his natal Germany, many years before his first big hit, "Universal Soldier".

"Joey", known in the U.S. as "Making Contact", is the story of a 9 years old kid named Joey (Joshua Morrell), who after the tragic death of his father, begins to experience psychic powers allowing him to move inanimate objects with his mind, set things on fire and even to communicate him with his dead father. However, not everything is good for Joey as his newly gained powers accidentally awake an evil supernatural force that is contained inside the body of an old ventriloquist's dummy that Joey found in an abandoned house. The supernatural Dummy shows similar powers to Joey's, and soon he puts the lives of everyone near Joey in danger as the evil Dummy has dark plans for Joey's special powers.

Written by Emmerich himself, along with Hans J. Haller and Thomas Lechner, "Joey" is pretty much a supernatural horror movie on the lines of Tobe Hooper and Steven Spielberg's "Poltergeist", but done with the approach of a fantasy movie for children (like "E.T.", also by Spielberg). The premise is very original, but sadly the script's development is quite typical of its time, although to be fair with it, the German version of the film (that runs 20 minutes longer) is a slight but noticeable improvement over the dubbed U.S. version. Focused on Joey, the film works more as a creepy adventure film than a horror movie, mainly because the story is written in a way that highlights the main character's fight versus the evil force instead of the horror created by the Dummy.

While the movie focuses on the action and adventure, this is not to say the film doesn't have good creepy moments, as it is packed with some very good (for the budget) visual dark imagery that forecasts Emmerich's taste for big budget special effects. It's really interesting what he does with his minimal resources, and one can say that at this early point in his career he knew the kind of films he wanted to do in the future. As with the script, the German uncut version allows a better picture of Emmerich's direction, that while not really masterful, it's competent and effective for the kind of movie he was trying to make. The similitude with "E.T." and "Poltergeist" is not gratuitous, as nods to both Spielberg and Lucas are very common in the film; this just shows how much the young German director admired his heroes.

The cast is really average, and this is really one of the film's weakest points, as the lack of experience of the cast (specially of the kids) becomes increasingly notorious given the fact that the director was at this point unexperienced as well (and being honest, directing actors has never been Emmerich's strongest characteristic). Anyways, Eva Kryll is the only actress with real experience, and as such delivers the best performance of the film, although her character is really small and doesn't really have enough screen time. Also, I guess one can say that the casting of Joshua Morrell was truly inspired, as the young actor really looked natural in front of the camera.

As written above, the unexperienced young cast paired with the unexperienced young director is likely a deadly combination for any film, and "Joey" has this as its biggest flaw. However, Emmerich manages to pull off a nice entertaining adventure of this that while not perfect, is a lot better than what could had been. The script isn't really amazing, and at times shows up some serious plot holes, but nothing really to worry about. "Joey" was intended to be a children's horror movie, and in that aspect it succeeds, as this movie is the perfect introduction to the horror genre for young children.

I can not recommend this movie to everyone, as definitely it won't be attractive to the average horror fan, but I'm sure the kids will enjoy it a lot more, as the movie has a nice mix of horror, adventure and comedy. "Joey", like Emmerich's other early films ("The Noah's Ark Principle" and "Moon 44"), shows the young talent of a visionary master of visual effects, that while probably not a very accomplished director, manages to make entertaining and attractive films that deliver good doses of entertainment. "Joey", or "Making Contact", is definitely one of the best horrors to enjoy with the kids, although it doesn't really offer something for the grown-up crowd. 6/10

Without a doubt, "Making Contact" -- or "Joey" as it apparently is otherwise known, is one of the most horrendous, mind-numbing, plot less pieces of nonsense ever filmed. It is not even accidentally entertaining. The acting is deplorably bad, exceeded in banality only by both the dialogue and the script. Where it is not utterly nonsensical and moronic, the story line is wretched, clichéd, and predictable. The cast of nobodies and never-will-bes should be imprisoned for their performances. The ending is an unprecedented cinematic abortion so bad that it damaged the heads on my VCR. The disconnected vignettes that purport to convey a plot serve as unintended parodies of such contemporary films as "ET" (doctors and technicians specializing in paranormal activity treat stricken young boy in his own home, he dies, supernatural powers herald his restoration, he lives); "Poltergeist" (lots of toys and other stuff flying around for no apparent reason); "Ghostbusters" (supernatural forces use your own fears against you; clichéd fat kid sees enormous carnivorous cheeseburger); "Star Wars" (R2D2-style robot with fetching personality gratuitously accompanies boy everywhere); and "Goonies" (several pre-adolescents -- including scared fat kid in overalls yelling "Hey, wait for me!" -- survive multiple perils in a collapsing, underground structure). It appears that the forces behind the making of this abomination mistakenly believed that they had a sure-fire formula for a can't-miss money-maker. We are left to ponder their epic miscalculation. I feel dumber for having watched it.

I used to rent this movie when I was a kid over and over again, with that compulsion little kids have, of watching something 500 hundred times until they've learnt all the dialogs. I remember it scared the s**t out of me, no matter how many times I saw it. I was 7 or 8. It was on the threshold of my tolerance to horror. It was exciting to go through it again with all your friends. Saw it many years before and it had lost all its spell. It's quite frankly, a lot rubbish. However, it has that something that mesmerizes little kids, whatever it is. Probably not an accomplishment of its director, but a fortuitous by-product.

I remember watching this film at a young age and found the movie terrifying. It was my first doll/dummy movie and from then on I definitely needed a night light. The dummy creeps me out even to this day. For the longest time I would have reoccurring dreams of the doll. I could not have a closet open because I thought the dummy would be in there, just staring at me. Even when I had stuffed animals or toys in my closet I felt like they were staring at me.

As I grew older, I laugh at the Chucky doll and never found him all that creepy, but the dummy from Joey definitely still gives me the creeps. I even recently watched the film 'Magic' and found that just as creepy. The doll from Dead Silence is the next big scary thing for me now. I just hope they keep coming with these.

After young Joey's father dies, he starts to make his various toys come to life, including his friend, R2D2. He also begins to whom he believes to be his dead father via his red toy telephone. Turns out not to be his father, but an evil ventriloquist dummy (and really is there any other kind?). The dummy soon makes little Joey's life a nightmare. Not that his life was all roses before, mind you. He's the type of kid to be heavily bullied. This movie scared the poo out of me as a kid and I could see it still doing so if I were still a kid. But like "the Boogens", it hasn't aged well in the least. Who the hell would show this film to a little kid anyway?? now THAT'S just bad parenting right there.

My Grade: D

2-disc DVD Extras: both 79 & 98 minute versions of the film; and 2 theatrical Trailers for the American version, 1 for the German one

My girlfriend has a large VHS library she's trying to convert to DVD, but there are some films she's going to have a hard time finding, especially this one. Without looking at the box I was able to watch this movie and pinpoint the year of its release (The E.T. glass, the R.O.T.J. bed sheets and especially the teacher's Velcro shoes were dead giveaways to the production date). Fletcher was a good moment to reminisce about the official Lester dummy I used to have. I found out the hard way my girlfriend is deathly afraid of ventriloquist dummies. This movie was not among her faves when she was a kid because of this. My only complaints about the movie was a flub early in the movie, when Joey is picking up his backpack and you can clearly see the name "Josh" written on the baseball patch on the bag. Then there's the little black boy who conveniently disappears when the fit hits the shan only to turn up for the movie's lackluster finale. Smart move, kid. All in all, a decent movie for its time, but it's no Mac and Me, and that's saying a lot.

When it comes to the worst movies ever made, most are so bad that in a sick way you can enjoy them. If you have a decent imagination and a sardonic sense of humor then it's easy to find *something* to amuse yourself with. J-Lo's atrocious acting has made me laugh several times, so has Coleman Francis' magnetic screen presence. In some small way these little joys make sitting through "Red Zone Cuba" or "Enough" tolerable, and, if things get really bad, you might have enough material to genuinely enjoy yourself.

Taking this into consideration, I can say with no small amount of certainty that "Making Contact" is my least favorite film of all time. There is no consolation prize; nothing comes to speed things along. It's just drudgery. Little things that are usually enjoyable, even in bad films, are stripped of anything decent: 80's clichés fail to bring back fond memories, painfully bad acting fails to elicit any laughs, and the convoluted story fails to surprise or interest the reader. You neither love nor hate the characters-you take absolutely no stake in Ralph's adventure. Everything's flat and uninteresting. This film is completely worthless.

This is a movie that should be funny, as are other campy horror films. Yet, this little film aimed at kids, with star wars/ET references everywhere, is rather disturbing, and while I didn't know it at the time makes my disdain towards Emerichs "work" even stronger. Don't show this to kids, it will traumatize them, don't show this to anyone else, its doesn't even make sense on drugs.

Joey, also known as Making Contact, is a 1985 West German techno-horror-fantasy film from Centropolis Film Productions (now Centropolis Entertainment). The film was co-written and directed by Roland Emmerich.

I had never heard about this 1985 movie titled "Joey" (aka "Making Contact") from director Roland Emmerich prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2024. In fact, I didn't even know that it was Roland Emmerich who directed it, so that was a nice surprise to see as the movie started.

Writers Roland Emmerich, Hans J. Haller and Thomas Lechner put together a fair enough script and storyline. And if you haven't watched "Poltergeist" or "Poltergeist II: The Other Side", then you're in for quite a treat here.

There are so many similarities between the 1985 movie titled "Joey" and the 1982 "Poltergeist" and 1986 "Poltergeist II: The Other Side" that it was just uncanny. From the music, Joey's room, the light in the closet, the hallway outside Joey's room, and more. Sure, it made for some kind of familiarity, I suppose, but at the same time wasn't it bordering on plagiarism?

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, but the acting performances were good.

Visually then the movie was okay. It is showing signs of being almost 40 years old, of course. But the special effects are actually still fair to look at.

My rating of "Joey" lands on a five out of ten stars.

This has to be one the worst movies I've ever seen. So bad it's laughable and causes copious amounts of eye rolling and questioning your decision to even watch it. There are entirely too many head scratching moments. It's basically a rip-off of Poltergeist, E. T. and a bunch of other movies along with a completely nonsensical plot. I mean, there is no rhyme or reason at all to this movie. In some scenes it's like the director wasn't familiar with human emotion or behavior and just threw together a poor mimicry of them. There is absolutely nothing original about this movie. Every aspect of it is something from other movies. Even the score is a knock-off of the E. T. score. And don't get me started on the horrendous acting and awful dialog. Like this isn't even good enough to be considered a decent parody. It's quite clear the director LOVES Steven Spielberg because this whole movie is basically a fan letter to him. It's literally poorly written/directed fanfiction. I'm glad he came a long way from this embarrassing mess. But hey, you gotta start somewhere.

9 year old Joey Collins (Joshua Morrell) is a sad and lonely kid living in the city of Virgina Beach with his mother after his dad died. He discovers one night he has gained telekinetic and psychic powers which makes his toys come to life and even gain the power to communicate with the spirit of his dad on a toy phone which gives him love and hope, he's a unfairly unpopular kid at school cause he told them his secrets yet they think he's crazy as he has only one friend and of course his pet robot Charlie. One night while walking his dog and robot, he stumbles into an old abandoned mansion that belong to a famous magician/ventriloquist named Jonathan Fletcher and finds an old yet creepy ventriloquist dummy named Fletcher (Voiced by Jack Angel in the U.S. version)as he takes it home with him only to later find out it's possessed by a demon. It terrorizes young Joey into not believing that the person he is talking on the phone isn't his father but the boy refuses to believe it yet the little creature threatens his mom, friends and even some of the folks in his city with demons from another dimension for only Joey can put an end to it's reign of terror.

Very entertaining, fantastic and highly underrated yet overlooked German supernatural horror fantasy drama from Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day", "Stargate" and "The Patriot") long before his Hollywood career. The film incorporates themes about life and death including the power of how to cope with it even though we sometimes can't wish that we need to bring that person back but how to live with it, i think the film's acting is surprisingly good even for the young lead. Some people accuse this of being a knock-off to some of Spielberg's and Lucas's movies like "Star Wars", "E.T.", "Poltergeist" etc. but IT ISN'T a rip-off, it's a tribute and homage as Mr. Emmerich uses playful non-mean spirited references that taps into the mind of a child's imagination on their obsession with movies they love on how sometimes they would like to have a special friend kind of like E.T. and how they could bring their Star Wars-esquire fantasies to life. The dummy Fletcher himself is one creepy little doll whom rivals Fats from "Magic" as the scariest ventriloquist dummy to hit the screen, i remembered watching this movie on HBO when i was young at the age of 5 in 1987 as it scared the hell out of me. Then later in my high school days i adored the movie yet the dummy still gives me the willies, i think it's a wonderful and kind of dark supernatural modern fairy that is a well done and eerie tale of death and magic. The German version of this movie known as "Joey" is the better version then the U.S. New World Pictures English dubbed version "Making Contact" for it has scenes that were cut out of the U.S. version and has a much better music score.

If you want a different yet imaginative movie that combines horror, fantasy and even drama that is also a tearjerker with a moral then i highly recommend checking out this fascinating underrated cult gem.

Also recommended: "Poltergeist", "Ghost", "Pan's Labyrinth", "The Gate", "The Shining", "House (1986)", "Silent Hill", "Magic", "House By The Cemetery", "The Exorcist", "Akira", "Spirited Away", "My Neighbor Totoro", "Star Wars Saga", "The Mummy Trilogy", "Dead of Night (1945)", "Tourist Trap", "Puppet Master", "Ghostbusters 1 & 2", "The Dark Crystal", "1408", "Twice Upon a Time", "The Devil's Backbone", "Pet Sematary", "Scanners", "Carrie", "Firestarter", "Suspiria", "Phenomena", "Inferno", "Mother of Tears", "Hellraiser 1 & 2", "Final Destination Trilogy", "Willow", "A Nightmare on Elm Street", "Stephen King's IT", "The Frighteners", "The Neverending Story", "City of Lost Children", "Harry Potter Saga", "Child's Play Series", "Trilogy of Terror", "Devil Doll (1964)", "The Monster Squad", "The Goonies", "City of the Living Dead (a.k.a. Gates of Hell)", "The Nightmare Before Christmas", "Beetlejuice", "Christine", "The Ring (Japanese and American)", "Hellboy 1 & 2", "Phantasm", "Dolls (1987)", "Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night", "Big Trouble in Little China", "Monster House", "Donnie Darko", "Escape to Witch Mountain", "Return to Witch Mountain", "Dead Silence", "Something Wicked This Way Comes", "Constanstine", "Pin", "Cat's Eye", "Ju-On The Grudge", "The Fog (1980)", "Prince of Darkness", "The Secret of NIMH", "The Last Unicorn", "Excalibur", "Howl's Moving Castle", "The Amityville Horror (1979 and 2005)", "The Omen (1976)", "The Phantom Tollbooth", "The Orphanage", "Krull", "The Dead Zone (1983)", "Watcher in the Woods", "The Haunting (1963 and 1999)", "The Legend of Hell House", "Burnt Offerings", "The Pit", "Dolly Dearest", "Twilight Zone The Movie", "Witchboard", "Visitors", and "The Ghost and Mr. Muir".

Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Joey aka Making Contact; here's the breakdown of my ratings:

Story: 0.25 Direction: 0.50 Pace: 0.75 Acting: 1.00 Enjoyment: 1.00

TOTAL: 3.50 out of 10.00.

There's no doubting that from 1992 onwards, with the release of Universal Soldier, Roland Emmerich's skills as a director had grown. Especially after watching Making Contact, where he doesn't only borrow ideas for the storyline but his scenes too. There are so many movies in this one picture it's hard to say which bandwagon he's jumped onto until you realise the films have one thing in common - Steven Spielberg. You'll easily spot the visual and narrative similarities between ET, Poltergeist, Raiders of The Lost Ark, and The Goonies. Due to how Spielberg feels about the likes of Amazon and Netflix making movies that are acceptable at the Oscars, I'm amazed Stevie didn't sue the ass off Emmerich for this flick - maybe he took it as a homage.

That aside: the story, penned by Emmerich, Hans Haller, and Thomas Lechner, tells the story of Joey, a young lad who has just lost his father, except after the funeral, Joey receives a call from his dearly deceased daddy...on his red toy telephone - something a kid his age should've trashed a long time before. But Daddy isn't the only new thing in the house. Joey now possesses the psychic ability to move objects. All he has to do is use his thoughts to ask dad for help, and hey presto, the glass of OJ slides across the table. Oh, and don't forget the ventriloquist dummy he rescued from the dilapidated house down the lane, which has also sprung to life and is now making Joey and his mother's lives miserable. Ooops, I nearly forgot the cute self-powered electronic robot that does what it wants, like hiding from girls because it's shy. With all this going on in his life, it's easy to see why Joey finds it hard to make friends at school - and why the other boys have taken to mocking and bullying him. With this much content, you'd think it'd be a great story. Well, it could've been. Sadly, none of the writers takes the time to develop the characters. Everybody is too quick to accept the strange phenomena occurring in the house. Nobody questions them. Even when the truckloads of paranormal researchers arrive, they treat the flying objects and levitating people as run-of-the-mill events, which, in itself, lessens the supernatural episodes for the movie and the audience. I found it hard to believe that Joey's mother is his mother. The characters are that poorly constructed. There's no motherly bond between them, and she doesn't appear to care too much about his safety. She's not too broken up over her husband's death either. She quickly slides into the caring male teacher's life and arms. And then we get to the story's structure. The writers failed to fully realise the hodge-podge of story ideas, making the whole tale jagged and disjointed. And the ending is so throw-away terrible that I won't mention it.

As for Emmerich's direction - well, before he came into his own, he was a poor man's Spielberg, Tobe Hooper, and Richard Donner, all of whom did a better job with their pictures. However, replicating those guys' works aided his growth. Sadly, after the main setback of the story, the movie suffers from a lack of budget and over-stretching of ideas. Compared with the rolling storm clouds in The Lost Ark and Poltergeist, these ones look sad and powerless. And speaking of Poltergeist, those flying spinning objects got flack because they quickly looked outdated. Well, wait until you see these air riders. The Poltergeist floaties will look like masterpieces of special effects once again. But that said, there is a couple of decent FX. One is the maze they find themselves in when they break into the tumbledown house at the end of the lane. Yep the cellar is a gateway to...well, we don't know, and Emmerich and the writers didn't appear to care - it was just another of those annoying ideas. Anyways, it looks good, and there's a dragonlike creature beyond its walls, as well as a ginormous version of the dummy, and a monstrous child-devouring beef burger in its lair within the maze. And though these look good and are passable, they're let down by the story and the direction. Emmerich keeps everything ticking over at a swift pace. Regrettably, using this tempo with the manic FX adds a more rabid look and feel to the scenes. It looks as though Dreamworks had received a Cujo bite.

The cast is okay: They can only do the best with what the writers supply and how the director instructs them. Had the writers done a better job with the characterisations and had Emmerich pointed them in better directions, the movie would be more acceptable for their performances. As it stands, the characters are dull, and the performers do their best to keep them as boring and uninteresting as the writers and Emmerich wanted.

So, by now, you should know what I'm about to say - Stay away from this picture; I cannot recommend that strongly enough. If you want to watch Emmerich at his best, I suggest you start with Universal Soldier and go from there. But if the notion of this story tickled your interests, then go and get copies of ET, The Goonies, Poltergeist, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then sit back and enjoy those films. All are better than Joey - Making Contact.

Gottle of gear. Give me my gloody gottle of gear. Now while I swig this gloody gear down my wooden neck, go check out my IMDb list - Absolute Horror, to see where I ranked Joey.

Take Care & Stay Well.