Even if you don’t believe in alien abductions, there’s no denying Whitley Strieber’s
1987 book Communion changed the conversation around UFOs and aliens.
Strieber captured the media’s attention by promoting Communion as a true story, and
the best-selling novel shifted public perception about extra terrestrial visitors.
So it was a big deal when Hollywood adapted Communion into a feature film.
Strieber wrote the screenplay for the 1989 movie, and the film’s producers hired Academy
Award-winning actor Christopher Walken to play Whitley.
It was all downhill from there.
Critics panned Communion as it tanked at the box office.
So, What went wrong?
How did a much-anticipated feature with a Hollywood A-lister go so off the mark?
Is Communion that bad?
Or were Strieber’s claims too far out there for moviegoers to wrap their heads around
in 1989?
Does Communion hit different/work if you’re already into UFOs and love learning about
famous cases?
Let’s find out.
In 2022, alien abduction is no longer a niche concept.
Even people who don’t believe in UFOs can describe abduction stories.
Short, bug-eyed, grey-skinned beings have neen a pop culture mainstay for the past three
decades.
Before then, people thought of ETs as little green men from Mars.
But a cultural shift during the late ‘80s changed that widely-held perception.
Years before The X-Files took off and South Park launched a thousand anal prob memes,
Strieber’s controversial novel, Communion, redefined how people thought about close encounters
of the third kind.
Communion placed a blazing spotlight on ufology’s most controversial aspects.
Seeing lights in the sky was one thing.
But convincing people little blue beings kidnapped you in the night demands a whole other level
of open-mindedness.
Strieber was already a successful horror author when he wrote Communion – a couple of his
books were adapted into films.
Strieber’s job as a fiction writer made him an easy target for skeptics and cast doubt
on his spectacular claims – imagine Stephen King claiming he lived in a haunted house.
Strieber claims he wrote Communion to help him process his traumatic encounters.
After Communion hit bookstores, mainstream journalists and entertainers started talking
about UFOs and alien encounters.
Suddenly, it wasn’t uncommon to turn on the TV and see Unsolved Mysteries or The Oprah
Winfrey Show discussing alien abductions.
Communion’s release was a seminal event in the UFO community.
Director Philippe Mora’s 1989 movie adaptation…
not so much.
The film begins in the autumn of 1985.
with Whitley (Christopher Walken), his wife Anne (Lindsay Crouse) and their son Andrew
(Joel Carlson) living a normal life in their ridiculously spacious Manhattan apartment.
The Striebers and another couple want to leave the city for a few days, so they head off
to a secluded cabin in upstate New York.
Their weekend of fun takes a dark turn once the sun goes down.
Once everyone goes to bed, a brilliant white beam from the sky blasts the cabin.
Whitley startles awake after sensing a presence in the room.
And Andrew’s bedroom window slides open as spider-like fingers reach in for him.
Andrew’s screams snap Whitley out of a trance.
He races into his son’s bedroom with no memory of what happened moments ago.
The next morning, everyone feels on edge, even though they’re unsure why.
Their weekend getaway gets cut short after the Striebers’ freaked-out guests refuse
to spend one more night in the cabin.
After the trip, Whitley starts suffering from PTSD.
He can’t make sense of the bizarre memories bubbling up from his subconscious.
Seeking medical treatment, Whitley comes across a doctor specializing in helping people who
believe they’ve been abducted by aliens.
As Whitley uncovers the source of his anxiety, he’s left with two troubling scenarios:
either he’s losing his mind or aliens abducted him from his cabin.
I use the term alien, but this film makes an interesting choice and stays vague about
the humanoid entities.
Are these mystery creatures aliens, time-travellers, or extra-dimensional beings?
No one can say, not even Whitley.
Since releasing Communion, Strieber authored several books describing encounters with what
he calls the visitors.
His later works frame the abductions as gradual steps forward on a positive spiritual journey.
However, decades of interactions have left the author with more questions than answers.
It’s worth mentioning how the film refuses to explain who these visitors are and what
they want.
This movie would have been an easier sell to moviegoers if it focused on the space invaders
angle.
It's clear Mora doesn’t give a damn about the plot’s how’s and whys, so the film
feels incoherent at times.
Instead, the movie strives to make viewers feel the emotional impact of Strieber’s
encounters.
Whitley's abductions play out like dream sequences.
Whereas most horror movies seek to recreate the bloodcurdling menace of a nightmare, Communion
captures the hazy surrealism of a fever dream.
Communion doesn’t shock you with jump scares, but it does get under your skin.
Abduction sequences feel like something out of a David Lynch movie.
They’re haunting, baffling and even absurd.
Bug-eyed aliens float through the air and sway like hula dancers.
And stout little blue creatures purse their lips and grunt as they drag Whitley from his
bedroom.
Communion has the potential to freak you out (I'm talking about sleeping with the lights).
But I understand if you laugh your way through the whole movie.
Mora shot the film in the late ‘80s before the industry moved to CGI.
The special effects team relied on puppets and short folks in rubber suits.
Communion’s lo-fi practical effects give it a shabby, B movie vibe.
The creatures’ limited range of expressions makes them look cheap and silly.
But, watching the film as a child, those emotionless faces and soulless black eyes scared me senseless.
I think the puppets work to chilling effect because they appear cold and inhuman.
But maybe I only feel this way because this weird movie scarred me as a kid.
You can’t talk about Communion without addressing Walken’s out-there performance.
First, it’s important to know that the Oscar-winning actor didn't believe a lick of Strieber's
story.
Whereas Mora approached the project with an open mind, Walken assumed Strieber was off
his rocker.
Walken opted to present the character as unhinged.
Once Mora said action, Walken hammed it up with the wild-eyed intensity of someone doing
a Christopher Walken impression.
In one instance, aliens creep into Whitley's bedroom to abduct him.
Instead of doing the sane thing and crapping his pants, Walken looks at the creatures and
laughs.
Later on, Walken dances with the visitors.
Mora kept these takes in the movie because he found them authentic – like what someone
in a state of shock would do.
Despite his over-the-top acting choices, Walken still delivers a stirring performance.
Walken succeeds at making you understand Whitley’s anguish.
He's trapped between a rock and a hard place, either kidnapped and abused by aliens or going
insane.
You see him struggle with his reality, too afraid to admit what's happening is real.
He projects confidence, even as he's falling apart.
His haunted eyes betray the character's New York alpha male bravado.
Thanks largely to Walken’s wild performance, Communion’s weirdness helps and hurts the
film.
Communion doesn’t work if you go in expecting a traditional horror flick.
It’s not a typical scary movie about a supernatural menace.
It’s a moody psychological horror that wants to break your brain.
This approach doesn’t make the scariest or most shocking horror movie.
But it captures the essence of what abductees claim to experience.
The film’s goal is to place the viewer in Whitley’s shoes.
An abduction tears people out of their reality and plunges them into a world they can’t
make sense of.
Whitley finds himself in situations where his brain can’t process what’s happening
before his eyes.
He’s terrified, and angry, and inquisitive, and bewildered.
The film also does an excellent job recreating what ufologists call high strangeness – the
hard-to-swallow aspects of an already hard-to-swallow phenomenon.
We see this in the moments where Whitley seems to be losing his grip on reality.
His encounters are so bizarre they go beyond him simply being an alien scientist’s lab
rat.
Other alien abduction films like The UFO Incident and Fire in the Sky depict definitive encounters
with beings from other planets on nuts and bolts crafts.
Credit to Mora for capturing ufology’s head-scratching nature and keeping the visitor presence vague.
This UFO movie lacks space ships, star charts, and easy answers.
Communion’s take on the ufology falls more in line with the theories of Jacques Vallee,
John Keel, and other outside-the-box thinkers who associate UFOs with time travel, psychic
phenomena, the afterlife, and alternate dimensions.
If UFOs and aliens aren’t your things, you’ll want to steer clear because Communion doesn’t
hit all the beats we expected from horror flicks.
It’s disturbing but rarely scary.
It also doesn’t do a great job giving Whitley’s encounters context.
That’s because Mora doesn’t want to explain what’s happening to Whitley; he wants the
audience to feel what’s happening.
If you have even a passing interest in ufology, Communion recounts one of the field’s most
famous cases, which makes it essential viewing.
does an excellent job capturing the head-scratching nature of UFOs and close encounters.
Too few films on the subject have ventured down the high strangeness rabbit hole.