I Finally Watched: 'Fire in the Sky'

The movie I finally watched last week is the one movie that scared the otherwise fearless B.O.: Fire in the Sky.

After leaving a worksite in the Sitgreaves National Forest, a logging crew led by Mike Rodgers (Robert Patrick) encounters a UFO hovering above a clearing in the woods. Unafraid, Travis Walton (D. B. Sweeney) approaches the craft for a closer look. He is enveloped by a beam of light and knocked unconscious. The others flee in panic, assuming Travis is dead. When a guilt-stricken Mike returns for Travis a short time later, the UFO and Travis have vanished.

The crew reports Travis missing and tell the authorities what they witnessed. Nobody buys their story, though, especially Lt. Frank Walters (James Garner), an expert detective. Mike and the rest of the logging crew endure intense scrutiny from investigators, their small-town neighbors, and family before Travis returns five days later naked, dehydrated, and very shaken.

Fire is not your average sci-fi movie. It is a biopic based on the real-life Travis Walton and his book about an alleged alien encounter, The Walton Experience. I recall reading somewhere that Walton’s abduction story is considered one of the most credible, based on a consistency of detail and corroboration from his fellow crew members, but there is controversy about it. Regardless, the events he outlines in the book were at least too vague for Hollywood. According to Entertainment Weekly, Paramount Pictures

felt Walton’s recollections of what happened on the spaceship were too fuzzy and too similar to other televised close encounters. The brass, which included former chief Brandon Tartikoff, ordered screenwriter Tracy Torme (CBS’ 1992 miniseries Intruders) to write a flashier, more provocative rendering that has Walton enduring ghoulish experiments and being chased around by grumpy aliens that resemble John Gielgud. (https://ew.com/article/1993/03/19/reworking-fire-sky/)

The result is provocative—so provocative it scared B.O. That’s why I avoided Fire for a long time: I thought it must be scary if it scared B.O., who I recall outlining scenes from the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street franchises at recess in third grade.

Having finally watched Fire, I can confirm it’s unsettling, but not scary. I admit it had me second-guessing familiar noises after I turned off the lights and laid in bed before falling asleep. If true, Walton’s experience is something I don’t want to share—especially the one featured in the movie.

Fire is a sleek, realistic, and believable extraterrestrial whodunit. It is nothing like the hokey alien movies of the fifties; it is more like Alien, one of my all-time favorite sci-fi and horror movies, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. (It’s similar, but not on par.) I think Travis’s romantic involvement with Mike’s sister, some scenes emphasizing the small town’s suspicion, and the tension among members of the logging crew are exaggerated for the silver screen, but they don’t distract. The way the encounter events are presented is effective, though I tend to be a fan of linear storytelling.

Fire features a number of actors I know from other movies. (Noting this has become a theme in these posts.) Patrick is best known for his role as the T-1000 in Terminator 2. I know Sweeney from a cute, fun flick I caught last year during the Winter Olympics, The Cutting Edge. Craig Sheffer was in A River Runs Through It, and I know Kathleen Wilhoite for her roles in Road House and Private School, an outrageous eighties teen sex comedy I recorded for the nudity when I was in high school.

As I mentioned, the flashbacks of Walton’s experiences aboard the UFO are freaky and intense at times. It bums me, though, that the events in the movie do not match Walton’s account. I should check out the book, though it might be nightmare fuel. One thing I wanted from the movie was more after Travis’s return. As it is, the film shows very little before the story jumps two or three years ahead and ends on a pleasant note.

It may not be as scary as B.O. made it seem, albeit way back when we were in junior high probably, but Fire is a worthwhile, thought-provoking, and freaky movie.