Communion (1989)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

Mission Log: Real-life account of fiction writer Whitely Strieber’s encounters with alien life forms. They learn to respect each other, admire each other and in the end, love each other.  

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• This city looks familiar. Must be San Franscisco.
• Eric Clapton performs the main theme? Never heard of the guy.
• Christopher Walken is totally rocking that fedora.
• Walken is going ape shit over his computer crashing on him.
• I just realized that Walken’s wife is Lindsay Crouse whom played Lily Braden in Slap Shot. Maybe she’ll underline all the fuck scenes in Walken’s great American novel when he finishes it.
• Is there a point to this scene where Walken and company struggle to stop the small oven fire in their apartment. 
• Man, the fire department came really quick!
• So far Walken has crashed his computer, failed to turn off the smoke alarm and now at their country cabin he doesn’t know how to turn off the security system. I’m thinking Walken is terrible with technology.
• So far their young son is only mildly annoying. But it’s only been less than 10 minutes.
• Now Walken is in bed with his wife, for some reason his eyeglasses are upside down, and he’s trying to get her to say ‘erection.’ This is one kinky couple.
• I know this is Walken and he naturally talks ‘funny’ but so far he’s saying such weird shit that you’d think he’s the alien from another planet.
• This looks like the same log cabin set as The Great Outdoors. Maybe there’s a Dan Aykroyd alien connection.
• Hahaha. Walken wakes up in the middle of the night because the security lights outside come on. He walks downstairs and sees an alien Grey peeking around a door.
• He’s not hallucinating either because everyone else in the house sees the whole house covered in brilliant light. Then an alien touches Walken’s face with its finger and everything stops when Walken’s kid starts screaming.
• Walken’s trying to gaslight his son into thinking what he saw was just a nightmare.
• Walken’s character’s name is Whitley?
• Walken is totally trying to convince everyone that it was dream. A huge collective shared dream. Between 4 adults and 1 kid.
• Walken’s friend, Alex, is really upset and demands that Walken takes them back home. I’m not sure if he’s spooked about the bright lights or that Walken is obviously lying to them about it being a dream.
• I realize that Walken acts out his writings to test out the dialogue for his novel but this means that there’s a lot of weird out-of-context conversations that Walken is having with himself. This is the most Walken movie I’ve ever seen.
• Now Walken is wearing a wolf mask, no pants and reddish-brown cowboy boots. Again, I’m not sure if this is relevant to the story.

• I’m also confused why he films himself while he reads out loud.
• Oh it’s Halloween, that’s a possible reason why he’s wearing a wolf mask. But his wife makes him change to an elephant instead. That begs the question: How many animal masks does one family own? Like I said, this is one kinky couple.
• This Halloween house party has a Halloween cake. Why? Aren’t all the kids hopped up on fun size Snickers and Twizzlers?
• Walken and his son were filming a Jack O’Lantern, for some reason, as they slowly walked down a hallway and when the son said ‘trick or treat’ a girl dressed as an alien (or bug) jumped out to scare them, Walken goes absolutely bonkers!
• Is the son the DP on this scene? While is the camera angle this low to the ground?
• Walken is sleeping on his wife, like using her ass as a pillow. Kinky!
• Walken is complaining to his wife that he used to be funny, more focused and be able to write well. I hear ya Chris. Maybe I was possessed by an alien some time ago. Might explain my general malaise and ennui.
• That was a huge time jump. Two scenes after Halloween and now it’s Christmastime. How long is Walken’s interaction with the alien encounter going to manifest? Other than his temper being worse there’s no change in his character. We’re over a half-hour into this and so far there’s not much happening.
• Now Walken and family are back at that log cabin in the country for Christmas and more alien shit is happening. So do the aliens live around there? Are they neighbors? Is there a reason they only visit Walken at this cabin?

• Walken’s kid keeps complaining that his dad is sad but Walken looks and acts more or less the same since we started this picture. He’s not really displaying any signs of depression. He’s laughing, having a good time, and even helping his son ride a bike. This kid doth protest too much.
• Again with the security lights!
• Now fat Jawa-like aliens carry Walken away from his room in the middle of the night and take him to their ship (I’m assuming) and help the Grey alien conduct some experiments on him. Maybe an anal probe, I’m not sure.
• Next morning Walken wakes up like nothing ever happened. It’s just like my bachelor party.
• Walken is giving bear facts to his family as they hike in the woods. This has nothing to do with the story but I’m sure learning a whole lot about bears.
• Man, this kid is super annoying. Walken is complaining about not feeling well and is in obvious pain but his kid keeps telling him “you’re fine” “c’mon.” What a little twerp.
• Walken and his wife are having a very odd marital argument. I’m not even processing what they’re saying it makes no sense to me at all. AT ALL! Something about being scared about a cloud passing over the moon or something.
• And I thought me and my wife fight over the stupidest shit.
• Fun fact: This movie was based on a non-fiction book written by the real Whitely Strieber, who claims that he was actually abducted by Greys.

• Walken is now in a crazy state and going around the cabin randomly shooting his shotgun at ‘aliens’ and nearly shoots his wife in the process. Me thinks, he’s sleeping on the couch tonight.
• Walken is now nonchalantly telling his physician that he was abducted by insect-looking creatures and was giving exams by them. Suffice to say, he recommends a shrink. Possibly because of his alien story.
• I think Lindsay Crouse just forgot her lines and they kept that take in.
• I’m really getting disturbed by the Streiber’s hot pink kitchen tiles.
• Walken confesses to his wife that he may be psychotic and having alien hallucinations. She’s taking it remarkably well. She blames it on his possibly having an affair with another woman and/or drugs. 
• Before bedtime, Walken’s son tells his mom about the little blue doctors that shine their lights on him at the cabin. Kids, amirite?
• Hey! The shrink is Cliff Clavin’s mom!
• She immediately asks Walken if he’s a heavy drinker or has done drugs.
• Walken is way too comfortable telling people he just met about the alien rectal probes.
• So…creepiest thing I’ve seen all month. This wooden statue in the shrink’s house. In fact all her decor is unnerving.

• So glad we get a recap of the first few scenes of the movie while Walken tells the shrink while he’s under hypnosis.
• He leaves the shrink (& his wife) in a huff and takes a bus. On the bus a crying woman, who says she’s lost, asks Walken for help. But he starts seeing her face as well as everyone on the bus as having grasshopper heads. He calls it an ambush. I cannot help but chuckle.
• Walken meets his friend Alex from earlier in the movie at a diner. When Alex walks in he’s wearing a Davy Crocket coonskin cap on unironically, I might add.
• I just realized that Alex was the one-armed man in The Fugitive!
• Alex is not helping Walken by talking about little men back in his home country. 
• So because Walken is reluctant to believe what he already believed about being abducted and refuses to join a group that also believes they were abducted, he has to undergo a small mental procedure to determine if he has brain damage. Which of course he doesn’t have brain damage so this is all a complete waste of time.
• Walken looks equally as bored and annoyed he has to hear his son talk as I am.
• This Clapton theme sounds like Walken and the shrink are going to have a wild and passionate affair. It doesn’t fit at all. AT ALL!
• Walken’s wife is having a more productive and revealing hypnosis than Walken did.
• Holy Shit what was THAT?! I think Walken was being attacked by the CGI cartoon from Dire Straits video for Money for Nothing.
• Is Walken dancing with the Greys?

• Walken just told a Grey to go to hell. And out comes the anal probe.
• Gross, they did not sterilize that anal probe after they were done with it.
• These Greys would be kinda frightening if they didn’t look so much Gumby characters.
• When did the alien ER turn into a human daycare? Where did all these kids come from?
• The shrink is hosting this special alien sighting group and I’m noticing that the creepy wooden statue from earlier has moved for no apparent reason other than to be next to another creepy wooden statue.
• “I’m not sure I’m comfortable having a writer here, Janet.” Shut up you shrew! Wow this lady with the shrill voice is super annoying.
• She claims that after her incident her husband tried to have her committed. With that obnoxious voice I’d have her committed too.
• Walken leaves the group after 5 minutes. He’s not giving it his all is he?
• Walken is now dressed like an undertaker, dancing and humming “Puttin’ on the Ritz” with a duffel bag and when his wife asks him where he’s going, he says “Going out for a pack of cigarettes.” She replies, after the door closes behind him, that he doesn’t smoke. Is she that fucking clueless?
• I get that Walken is troubled and wants some answers and doesn’t want his wife and son to be involved by going back to the cabin in the woods but why is he dressed up in black suit with a fedora?
• Without hesitation he walks into a giant ball of bright light in the middle of a field near the cabin.
• Hahahaha. When he goes inside he interrupts the little blue doctors dancing.
• They salute and bow to each other and even shake hands and give high fives and they all continue dancing. What the wide, wide world of sports is-a going on here?
• If you ever wondered how Christopher Walken would look as Gomez Addams, here ya go:

• Walken takes off one of the Grey’s lower face to reveal a lizard-like monster face underneath. I think it was supposed to be scary but it wasn’t. 
• So let me get this straight. This writer guy wrote a non-fiction account his alien abduction adventures and then made a movie about it (he was executive producer) and after seeing this flick, he’s OK at what is portrayed and how batshit crazy he comes across? Okie dokie.
• I just realized that when Walken walked in (nice) the glowing orb with the aliens, he had a camcorder to record them. But he never uses it. He hands it to one of the druid-like aliens and they put it down someplace. This further illustrates that this guy has zero proof that he witnessed aliens and didn’t make this shit up. 
• So now Walken has the great idea to drop his book idea that he had writers block on to now write about his alien adventures. Again, this writer fella wants us to believe that he witnessed aliens and was probed when this movie gives us the reasonable doubt that he made this all up to write a book?
• My theory is Strieber had a lot of gay sex and to help cover it up to his wife as to why his ass was aching and bloody all the time, he made up the anal probed by aliens ruse. 
• The movie ends with Walken writing and tells a floating glowing Grey head that he’s writing a book about him and then caresses the head. I’m sure it’s a metaphor but I don’t care.

 

Phobia Level: Kinda freaky imagery. And the aliens were kinda freaky too. But they also looked cartoonish so it depends on your threshold of freaky. And I should mention the wooden statue in the shrink’s office/home.

Sick Bay: Anal probes

Heavenly Bodies: The Grey’s were not ashamed of prancing around buck naked.

Best Transmission: Tons of great Walken deliveries but not really anything worth noting. I did get a chuckle when he said “this is an ambush!”

Most Successful Experiment: I’m drawing a blank.

Experiment Gone Awry: Not too many admirable or likable characters in this. Walken plays Streiber as eccentric and not always in a good way. The alien scenes were laughable in today’s standards of what alien abduction/encounters are portrayed.

Damage Report: I can’t seem to catch a break with my selections this year. Even one that is a big studio production with a major star is a total dud. I never heard of the writer Whitely Streiber but I am familiar with his work (The Hunger, The Day After Tomorrow and Wolfen) [Side note: The same day I watched this turd, I coincidentally watched Wolfen that night not realizing it was based on the book written by Whitely—FREAKY] and after watching this, I can say he’s no Richard Matheson or Dean Koontz! Even if you believe his story about his close encounter, his movie isn’t doing him any favors. Speaking of Close Encounters, Spielberg did a much better job about the obsession with finding the truth to the little green or grey men. This movie came out in 1989 and truth be told, I have never heard of it until very recently so that helps to prove its legacy as a rightly so forgotten flick. It’s not very entertaining, it’s very dated and it’s not thrilling or scary either, so you might as well skip it if you never seen it.

Kobayashi Maru Score: