SunnyHello
Nice effects though.
Baseshment
I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.
Dana
An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
kennetzel-1
HUGE SPOILER...It was sweet that they gave the central character, the actor Micky Hayes, the part. He was good considering the rest of the garbage that surrounds him, except Jack Elam...the only highlight of the film. You know by seeing him that he is the boy that made the talk show circuit back in the eighties when they tried bringing attention to his disease. They say he got the role through Make a Wish...which makes me wonder if they wrote the part for him. But, as I said, aside from all this and Jack Elam, the movie was horrible. The acting was way sub par. The audio kept dropping out and the special effects were despicable. Hard to believe the teacher is really flying her bike/airplane when you see that cable hoister her into the air, not to mention the numerous cables hoisting up the spaceship. I know this was before digital painting...but these were so obvious...no doubt hoping your imagination would erase them. Didn't work for me. I am a HUGE sci fi fan, but this is the kind of movie that gives sci fi a bas rap. Don't waste your time...even those horrible B movies out there are eons ahead of this. The Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman looks like Shakespeare compared to this little...gem. Speaking of Gem's, the little alien leaves these baseball sized jewels around when he gets out of his space ship. That's how you call him, so the school teacher takes apart a hurricane lamp that has those little prism teardrops on it, hands them out to the towns people, and there is the whole town holding up these little things hoping to call him...only to get shot by another bad actor. Even Dottie West, God rest her soul, should have stuck to singing, not acting. You can almost see everybody looking at the filming crew waiting for the instructions on what to do next. Like I said....wow.
Stephen J Cobert
This movie appears to try and cash in on the success of "E. T." by telling the story of a (supposedly true) occurrence in Texas almost a century earlier. A little alien lands near a Texas town and befriends many of the locals. Unfortunately his arrival attracts the attention of a few of the wrong people, and things go downhill from there.The story of "E. T.", retold in a time when there was no 20th century technology to work with - not to mention no Reese's Pieces with which to lure anyone out of the woods - could have made for a most interesting movie. Unfortunately, this feature is woefully slow-paced, and the ending is very much a downer. If the story is in fact true, the writers might have been forgiven for taking a little artistic license to pick up the pace a little and keep the audience's attention. The scenes of the alien's interaction with the townspeople (most notably Jack Elam's character) have some magic to them, but the film as a whole just never quite comes together.
tfrizzell
In the small Texas town of Aurora in the late-19th Century a tiny man (Mickey Hayes) seemingly fell out of the sky. This sets the tone for really the first legitimately-recorded UFO encounter in the U.S. (this is all supposedly based on a true story) as it seems the little man literally flew around in a small craft and was sent to this planet for some unknown reason. The children are entranced by the little fellow, the townspeople are a little frightened and the fright will ultimately lead to a sad tragedy as misunderstanding and prejudice will come into play. Hayes, unable to speak and harmless, meets old hermit Jack Elam (also somewhat an outcast in the small community) as all this transpires and they start a genuinely wonderful friendship as the two apparent opposites seem to have so much in common. "The Aurora Encounter" is one of those films that just seems to stick with me. The bond between Hayes (who suffered in real-life from a disease called Progeria, an illness which made him literally age about four to five times faster than everyone else) and Jack Elam is one of those cinematically magical experiences that I have a hard time explaining. Hayes, only 14 at the time of this film's release, would indeed die in the early-1990s (living to be only 20) from his horrible disease. This is the only film he ever worked on and his obvious kindness and the sympathy the audience feels for him is definitely undeniable. With all this said, "The Aurora Encounter" is still only an average film by the end. It succumbs to cinematic clichés and an unintentional mean-spirit that did not completely endear it with me. Elam (doing probably the best work of his long career) ultimately gets somewhat wasted because of other performers who really have no business in the movies. The direction is up and down and the screenplay is never sure what it wants to be. The movie just never really found an audience when released in 1986 and just became a very small footnote from the decade. If nothing else though, "The Aurora Encounter" should be watched for the scenes where Elam and Hayes are together playing checkers. As ho-hum as the movie is, the time when they are together on the screen is really something to embrace. 2.5 out of 5 stars.
jrichard-3
Once in a while a movie is so horrific, poorly made, and of such poor taste that it actually crosses into the realms of what I consider to be an entertaining flick. Aurora Encounter successfully achieves good scores on all the criteria I deem to be important. From the semi-novel plot of an alien encounter set in the past to the annoying synthesizer music throughout to the poorly acted, cheese-puffed dialogue...it satisfied me. Take all the poor production techniques and anti-climactic plot, slap'em together and add the most distasteful choice of all...the use of a CHILD with a degenerative disease as a hideous alien. The people that went along with making this film obviously had no spine for I cannot understand why anyone would take part in the exploitation of a fourteen year old kid! He was going to die soon of this disease! So now that I've established why myself and everyone else that enjoys this picture or has anything to do with it is going to hell, may I also say that I believe this film is the making of a quality B flick and is entertaining on many levels. I've also recently learned that recording artist DJ Shadow samples this film in his album Endtroducing..... An album you should definitely check out. Try and find the sample(s)...it's fun. I'm telling you, there's something special about this movie.
