BuddyBoy1961

This movie is the poster child of movies that shouldn't be edited by a director/writer! It is shockingly disjointed and frustrating to watch; the narrative is simply all over the place. Scenes exist that have nothing to do with...anything else. People say things they would never say...and do things people would never do. Characters just show up late in the plot that have never been seen or referred to previously. Jump scares do not a movie make! And please don't give me the standard, "It's all happening in his head" rot. If there truly were a 3-hour rough cut, the director should have handed over the footage to a set of fresh eyes who would have been able to craft something that at least made a modicum of developmental sense. How has this film not been skewered by MST3K?! There are perhaps a couple of moments here or there that are modestly interesting, but it's all really just a matter of too little-too late. The cinematography is not bad, and the score is sometimes effective, but I simply could not wait for these 90 minutes to elapse. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Though the production budget looks extremely limited, and the narration is a bit ripe, this still manages to be an interesting and informative (and even a bit creepy) documentary on the UFO phenomenon up to the late seventies. In other words, it succeeds despite itself. It does suffer from a bit too much pomposity now and then (note the frequent questioning by the narrator: "Could this be proof of...", "Is this evidence of...", and so on). But it does have in its favor a significant amount of UFO still and movie footage, not to mention in-depth interviews with Betty Hill, Travis Walton and several people involved with the Roswell incident. Highly recommended as a primer for those just starting out in their search to find "what's out there".

NOTE: The link to Amazon is misleading. While an interesting and more up-to-date report on the UFO phenomenon (and also featuring Dr. Stanton Friedman), the "Flying Saucers Are Real" DVD/VHS contains only a few minutes of footage from "UFOs Are Real". The "UFOs Are Real" VHS is likely long out-of-print since it was first released in the 80s, but you're still better off trying to find an old copy if you can.