On 26 December 1985 – while having a break from Manhattan in a Catskills cabin with his wife, Anne (Lindsay Crouse), their son, Andrew (Joel Carlson), and some guests (Andreas Katsulas and Terri Hanauer) – writer Whitley Strieber (Christopher Walken) has a strange nightmare.
In the following days, he is plagued by painful headaches, and his behaviour becomes increasingly erratic, moody and violent.
Finally, under hypnosis administered by a psychiatrist (Frances Sternhagen), he realises that his dream was not a dream at all.
The film was based on a 1987 non-fiction book by the real-life horror fiction writer Whitely Strieber, who maintained he had been abducted, taken aboard an alien spacecraft, examined and prodded by his captors (they put a needle into his head and a steel probe into his rectum) and then returned to his bed. The experience, unsurprisingly, nearly drove him crazy.
The author subjected himself to two rigorous lie-detector tests – one in New York and one with the BBC in London – and passed them both completely as being truthful. As director Philippe Mora (an old college buddy of Stieber’s) noted, “That doesn’t mean it happened. It just means that he believes it happened . . . I never doubted that he believed it”.
Stieber insisted that the aliens in the film – or “visitors” as he came to call them – be depicted exactly as he says he saw them, which looks to the uninitiated like short blue gnome-like beings and tall, spindly pink guys wearing bad rubber masks.
Christopher Walken is terrific as Streiber. He’s funny and believable as a writer, laughing at his own absurdities, tense and frightened but trying to hold on.
The film is convincing in its psychological particulars. It’s also boring enough to have really happened.
Whitley Strieber
Christopher Walken Anne Strieber
Lindsay Crouse Dr Janet Duffy
Frances Sternhagen Alex
Andreas Katsulas Sarah
Terri Hanauer Andrew Strieber
Joel Carlson Fireman
John Dennis Johnston Mrs Greenberg
Dee Dee Rescher Mother
Aileen Fitzpatrick Father
R.J. Miller Praying Mantis Girl
Holly Fields Woman from Apartment
Paula Shaw Second Grade Girl
Juliet Sorci Teacher
Tifni Twitchell Tall Boy
Joshua John Miller Woman on Bus
Kate Stern Lab Technician
Johnny Dark Whitley (5 years old)
Jonathan Fromdahl Man in Hallway
Andrew Magarian Dr Friedman
Basil Hoffman Patrick
Paul Clemens Nancy
Maggie Egan Sally
Irene Forrest Laurie
Sally Kemp Bob
Vince McKewin
Director
Philippe Mora
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Finally, under hypnosis administered by a psychiatrist (Frances Sternhagen), he realises that his dream was not a dream at all.
