Rate The Last Movie You Saw

I was pleased to see this again as it must be over twenty years since I last saw it. The first thing that strikes me is that I reacted against Eric Clapton's theme (co-written with Allan Zavod, the film's other composer), which to me sounded wrong for the film. This is one of those situations where you have a star band or solo artist sharing parts of a film score – Queen and Michael Kamen on Highlander for example. The majority of the film is more subdued and I found that a lot better.

There's plenty of humour in the film, and Christopher Walken was making me laugh straight away (maybe too much dancing though). The anal probe scene was very funny – "Can we talk this over?" and I chuckled, thinking 'it's all anal with Walken isn't it? ' I wouldn't say the humour is always successful, and some scenes may lose a lot because of it, but what I liked is that Walken is always nuanced enough that it doesn't become tongue-in-cheek. You're always conscious of Strieber coping with his experience.

Lindsay Crouse was really good in this too, combative and empathetic in equal measure. However I was disappointed with the lines in the art gallery about it all being to do with "God", which seemed like skewed reasoning. As a Babylon 5 fan it was also nice to see Andreas Katsulas, who I didn't remember being part of the film. Like Christopher Walken, he's very good at bringing in that sense of unease, which leads Alex and his wife to leave the cabin, and also in the scene where he finds Whitley and talks about the folklore he genuinely believes in (I also recalled that B5 referenced this story with its own alien kidnappers, the Streibs).

The aliens are a mixed bag. The best shot of them is probably the Grey peering from behind the door, and they certainly lose a lot when they become weary floating bodies in the later scenes. The "Blue Doctors" are a lot better. As a teenager watching this, they, and the central idea, were a lot more disturbing than they are today.

I was pleased to see this again as it must be over twenty years since I last saw it. The first thing that strikes me is that I reacted against Eric Clapton's theme (co-written with Allan Zavod, the film's other composer), which to me sounded wrong for the film. This is one of those situations where you have a star band or solo artist sharing parts of a film score – Queen and Michael Kamen on Highlander for example. The majority of the film is more subdued and I found that a lot better.

There's plenty of humour in the film, and Christopher Walken was making me laugh straight away (maybe too much dancing though). The anal probe scene was very funny – "Can we talk this over?" and I chuckled, thinking 'it's all anal with Walken isn't it? ' I wouldn't say the humour is always successful, and some scenes may lose a lot because of it, but what I liked is that Walken is always nuanced enough that it doesn't become tongue-in-cheek. You're always conscious of Strieber coping with his experience.

Lindsay Crouse was really good in this too, combative and empathetic in equal measure. However I was disappointed with the lines in the art gallery about it all being to do with "God", which seemed like skewed reasoning. As a Babylon 5 fan it was also nice to see Andreas Katsulas, who I didn't remember being part of the film. Like Christopher Walken, he's very good at bringing in that sense of unease, which leads Alex and his wife to leave the cabin, and also in the scene where he finds Whitley and talks about the folklore he genuinely believes in (I also recalled that B5 referenced this story with its own alien kidnappers, the Streibs).

The aliens are a mixed bag. The best shot of them is probably the Grey peering from behind the door, and they certainly lose a lot when they become weary floating bodies in the later scenes. The "Blue Doctors" are a lot better. As a teenager watching this, they, and the central idea, were a lot more disturbing than they are today.