Whitley Strieber (Christopher Walken) is a horror and science fiction novelist. He is married to Anne (Lindsay Crouse) and has a young son, Andrew (Joel Carlson). In October, the Streiber’s go off to their cabin, located in the woods of Rochester County, New York, for a short vacation. Accompanying them are their friends, Alex (Andreas Katsulas) and Sarah (Terri Hanauer).
That night, after everyone has gone to sleep, Whitley is awakened by a bright light coming through the window into the bedroom. Anne stays asleep, but Andrew, Alex and Sarah all also see the light. In the morning, no one remembers what happened the night before, but everyone has a feeling of unease. Alex gets upset to the point where he insists on leaving. To calm him down everyone packs up and leaves.
Whitley begins having strange dreams about short fat blue men that appear to be doctors and taller reddish creatures with long pointed heads. Whitley starts to suffer from psychological effects of whatever it was that happened to him. His doctor, Dr. Friedman (Basil Hoffman) can find no organic reason for Whitley’s discomfort. He ends up going to a psychiatrist, Dr. Janet Duffy (Frances Sternhagen). Through the use of hypnosis, Dr. Duffy begins to piece together the strange events that happened at the cabin. Whitley comes to believe that he had been the victim of an alien abduction. To try to come to grips with it, he returns to the cabin looking for answers.
“Communion” was released in 1989 and was produced and directed by Philippe Mora. It is an American science fiction film. The movie was based on the 1987 novel “Communion” by Whitley Strieber. Strieber also wrote the screenplay. The story is supposedly based on a true life extraterrestrial event that Strieber claims actually happened to him. Strieber also wrote several sequels to the book.
I’m not sure if the movie is weird because of the screenplay or if it’s weird because of Christopher Walken, but it most definitely is weird. The story starts out Ok. Soon is gets a little boring. Eventually you get to the abduction part which ended up being rather surreal in a comical way. Between the movie being difficult to believe and Walken being Walken, the film ended up appearing more like a comedy skit than a reality based tale.
The aliens also are not great but not really bad. At times they even look a little silly. There are two types of aliens represented. One type is a short fat blue alien that resembles a tiny Jabba-The-Hutt. The other type is a tall wiry orange creature that looks like a combination of the standard Greys and those giant inflatable balloon-men.
There are several different versions of the film in various different lengths depending on if it is a cable, video or theatrical release version.
Supposedly, Author Strieber has a cameo as a person in the background in the museum near the end of the film. The character is out of focus so I’m not sure how accurate that information is.