Let's be realistic.

Absolutely Fantastic

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The film takes place in the part of Arizona where everyone is required to maintain a video diary. We follow a forest ranger, two couples, and two hunters as they encounter the alien depicted on the back of the DVD cover plus other things.This is a hand held camera film, but claims it is fictional at the end of production. It includes the ground cam, the green night time cam, the dark cam, and the herky-jerky cam. It was missing the tent "what is that noise" cam. Megan Drust provided the tease eye candy. The action started comparatively early and we got to see the alien clearly. The film gives a nod to on-line web site "Mr. Skin."Guide: F-bomb. No sex. Male rear nudity. $9.88 US Walmart

So, strangely perhaps, I actually liked this movie. It's yet another in the genre of people with a camera, lost footage found, etc., etc. so it isn't entirely original. In fact that's becoming so cliche these days that it's tempting to just forget about it and turn to something else. And admittedly this takes the genre to a somewhat ridiculous extreme. Everybody has cameras! Everybody seems to be documenting everything they do - which is certainly handy when you encounter aliens and terrifying creatures out in the woods! And, yes, it's a sign of a movie being made on a bare bones budget, and it has all the challenges involved - shaky cameras, blurry footage - which kind of makes sense, but doesn't necessarily make for a really good movie. And yet ...Something here worked for me. I rather liked this. Everything revolves around a spot in the woods in Arizona where several otherwise unconnected people independently find themselves, but experience the same terrifying thing. It begins with a US Air Force base noting that "something" is falling - but they don't know what it is. A meteor perhaps? The next day it's found by a park ranger, who discovers that it's an alien ship of some kind and that there's some strange fungus like material growing around it. She gets bitten by something - which starts a day of terror for everybody in the area.It may be cliche. It may be low budget. It may have a virtually unknown cast. Fair enough - it may not be that good. But there was enough going on that was good that I liked it. First, it was a very creepy movie. The mystery was strange; the events were strange; the creatures were - well - weird. That all worked. And I thought that Robert Conway (who directed it) made some really good use of the woods environment and of the darkness to often give us just glimpses ... glimpses of whatever it was, but without enough detail to really know what it was. For all its weaknesses, it worked well, I thought - up to the end, which was actually rather disappointing. Nothing was cleared up. Nothing was really answered. The only survivor (Collin - played by Clint James) is a psychological mess after his night of sheer terror. He says enough to make us think that this was an "accident" of sorts - that whatever happened, the aliens didn't mean it, but we really don't find out very much. A little bit more closure would have been nice.Still, in my opinion, if you like movies that are effectively creepy, this is short and worth taking in. I rather liked it. (6/10)

How can I start my review about this... flick? I watched the trailer and decided to check the movie out, and let me tell you... What a waste of time. I was watching this and thinking to myself "why is it so bad?". This movie is about aliens that infect people that become aliens as well... OK... Kind of the zombie scratch or bite? Not the way Alien Encounter movies normally work... Everything is wrong in this movie. Confusing plot, senseless dialogues, and the characters are so dumb... I mean, the effort is there (somewhere), but I just didn't see it. I wouldn't recommend watching this one, but, I'll leave it up to you to decide.

"The Encounter" is the bare bone of found footage genre without anything new. It attempts to deliver three different perspectives as they come across strange occurrence, yet the production is sketchy and the acting is far from convincing. Furthermore, it soon dives into the far too familiar territory of shaky cam, excessive yelling or incomprehensible scene in dark corners.It opens with several people with one similarity, they all end up in the forest screaming. None of them registers any connection as the acting is overly exaggerated. They deliver monologues with rigid expression of staring, stuttering and occasionally racy cam show fashion. Some of these definitely fall into the campy category, it's hard to take them seriously even with all the blood splatter.There are a couple of decent scenes concerning the viral property of said encounter, but these are fleeting at best. The production uses CG which is strikingly inauthentic, lots of blood as though someone spills the catering and nonsensical frantic shouting, especially in the latter half. Cue in the confused running in the forests with night vision or barely any vision at all, and you have the basic found footage movie.Only presenting tired gimmicks in its entirety, there's no need to experience this encounter in any kind.