Beyond the Sky

source: Beyond the Sky

Documentary filmmaker Chris Norton is haunted by his mother's disappearance on his 7th birthday which his father blamed on an alien abduction. He spends his time debunking the alien abduction hoax which he sees as the cause of his family's disintegration. He goes to Roswell, New Mexico with cameraman Brent to do a story about the UFO congress run by Bill Johnson. There are many who claim to be survivors of abductions. One of them is local Emily Reed who claims to have been abducted on her 7th birthday and again on her 14th birthday. Her 21st birthday is approaching and she invites him to witness whatever may come. The premise and the concept has some intrigue. There could be some better tension. It takes a good step with the missing time but it takes a bad step going with the mystical Indian trope. I don't see the reason for the elaborate scheme although I do like the final alien visit. The acting is passable and the story is meandering.

Movie ended with lot of love and started with lot of questions. Sometimes felt like movie moves slowly. Anyway, Not bad!!!

This is a subtle, well-acted and thoughful presentation of all sides of the alien abduction phenomenon. Very watchable and moves with a good pace through the build up and central story.

As in it knocked me the f out 34 minutes into it. This was terrible. The main actor, Carnes, he should stick to soaps because he cannot act. His performance was not only not believable, but also over the top. The love story they tried to put together was a flop. Him being an angry journalist just came across as some privileged guy trying to make everyone see his point of view. I have no idea how this ends as I woke up when the credits were rolling. The last thing I did see was them at the reservation taking the hallucinogenic tea.

It's one of those rare flicks that starts off with a frankly somewhat boring story line about a kid whose mother went missing. Daddy claims alien abduction. How ridiculous. So the kid grows up and begins hunting aliens with a videographer side kick. After about two thirds of this slightly interesting movie and event occurs, which I will not reveal here, that savagely and astonishingly changes the entire thrust of the film. It's a terrific segue. That alone makes the film well worth watching.

Chris Norton (Ryan Carnes) wants to produce a documentary to prove once and for all that Alien Abductions do not exist. He needs to prove his father Peter (Peter Stormare) wrong as he always claimed that his wife was abducted and never returned home. Chris believes his mother left because her husband was a no account drunk. Chris travels to a UFO convention near Roswell, NM and finds Emily (Jordan Hinson) who claims to have been abducted every 7-years since she was born. Her 21st birthday is coming up and Chris wants to be near her. This should be good. You have a feeling that you will know 2-things: (1) Chris and Emily will fall in love (Ya think?) and (2) Chris will change his mind about Alien Abductions. How's that? Got your attention now? We hear Chris narrate what he will do to prove his point. This lasts only a while and is forgotten for the rest of the movie. We do see some exceptional desert landscapes and Heaven-like pastel skies. We will see a con game by Bill Johnson (Don Stark) to perpetuate the alien abduction stories as it's good for business. Chris and Emily get kidnapped into the phony con game, and escape, but what happens next Is why we go to these type of movies. Notables: Claude Duhamel as Brent, Chris' cameraman; Dee Wallace as Lucille, proprietor of the Alien Artifacts store; Milton Chee as John Greatbear, the father figure for Emily and her protector; Don Stark as Bill Johnson who organizes the Alien events. It doesn't matter if you believe or not believe in UFOs, Alien Abductions or if we have been visited by Aliens in the past or not, this is a good Sci-Fi story and the ending will satisfy and the CGI at the end is sure to impress. Would love to see Sequels. (7/10) Violence; Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Humor: Some. Language: Believe I heard one F-bomb but sounded muffled. Rating: B

Ever since the initial UFO scares in the 50s people have loved to watch movies based on the possibility of invaders from outer space heading to Earth. With the stories of Roswell those movies abounded and screens were filled with various versions of little green men. The films weren't done with finesse until Steven Spielberg came along with CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND. The low budget film WAVELENGTH a few years later wasn't bad and FIRE IN THE SKY gave us our first serious look at what was claimed to be an actual abduction. THE X-FILES told us to believe. But most movies failed to hit the mark. Until a new film called BEYOND THE SKY was released. Documentary film maker Chris Norton (Ryan Carnes) is set to make a film about those who claim they were abducted by aliens. Norton is a non-believer who has a rational explanation for all of the claims being made. In part this was spurred on by the fact that his mother left him and his father years before and on that same night his father claims to have seen aliens. Norton goes to a gathering of claimants at a convention near Roswell along with his trusty cameraman Brent (Claude Duhamel). Warmly greeted by Bill Johnson (Don Stark) things get iffy when while interviewing one of the guests he becomes agitated. Johnson asks them to leave but a woman who calms down the young man catches his interest. The woman is Emily Reed (Jordan Hinson). Norton and Brent track her down to a small group she hosts on her own with no publicity. Somewhat like an AA meeting each members stands, states their name and tells their story. In Emily's case she has been abducted every seven years since she was seven years old. And in a few days she will be celebrating her 21st birthday. Staying behind and talking with Emily she invites him to go along with her to a secret Indian ceremony nearby that she hopes will protect her from the abduction this time. Given hallucinogens the trio have visions. When they come down the unfortunate news is that the ceremony didn't work. Emily will once again be abducted. What happens from here is something that has to be seen to be enjoyed. To reveal more would spoilt it and trust me, the movie caught me off guard here and in a good way. I'm one that usually figures out what's coming before a movie gets to the last 20 minutes. I thought I'd done that here but not quite. It makes for a satisfying ending. The acting is truly good among this group. They come off as believable and that's refreshing to see in a day and age when big name stars come across as performers rather than actual people. Carrying off a performance on a topic like this and making it believable makes it even more special. But with a movie about alien abduction the true question becomes what about the special effects? If the potential aliens and spacecraft, if they are indeed that, don't look good then a movie can fall flat on its face. Here I found those to be quite satisfying as well. It was a good job and interesting to witness the concepts that the film makers came up with here. On the whole I would recommend this movie to any and every one. I truly enjoyed it and know I'll hold on to it and watch it again in the near future. It was that good. My guess is you will enjoy it as well so seek it out among the ton of big studio features that don't begin to compare.

Well, I didn't even know about "Beyond the Sky" - aka "Encounter" - prior to getting the chance to sit down and watch it. Normally the Sci-Fi genre is not my first choice of go-to movies, but alien abductions just have something alluring about them. So I gave the movie a chance. Turns out that I am not wasting my time in doing so, because "Beyond the Sky" actually turned out to be a rather entertaining movie and had an interesting story to tell. I liked how director Fulvio Sestito and writers Rebecca Berrih, Marc Porterfield, Fulvio Sestito and Rob Warren Thomas came up with a storyline that both keeps the audience in the dark, trying to guess and figure out if there is some truth to the happenings or if it is all hoax and make-belief. There is a good atmosphere to the movie and it feels like you are right there in the midst of the action yourself. So that was a rather enjoyable aspect of the movie. And of course it was set to take place in Roswell, New Mexico, where else could it have been for a movie such as this? Sure, that was a bit corny, but hey it is all part of the charm and the whole mystery that surrounds alien abductions and visits from outer space. They had a fairly good cast coming together for the movie, and each actually performed quite well and brought their respective character to life on the screen. I was not familiar with the three lead performers; Ryan Carnes - playing Chris Norton, but he performed quite well in this movie. As did Jordan Hinson - playing Emily Reed, and also Claude Duhamel - playing Brent. It was nice to see the likes of Don Stark - playing Bill Johnson, Peter Stomare - playing Peter Norton and Dee Wallace - playing Lucille, in the movie as well. While their roles were not all that prominent, well Don Stark's character was, then they provided a needed spicy element to the movie with their performances. While "Beyond the Sky" is a movie that deals with an extraterestial phenomena, it is not a movie that is heavy in its usage with CGI and special effects. And that actually worked out quite well, because the movie was more about suspense, building up tension and atmosphere. But the special effects and CGI that was there was spot on, and really worked so well for the movie. I was more than genuinely entertained with this movie, and I had somewhat expected it to be a less than mediocre movie experience, perhaps even one of those kind of found-footage movies with shoddy camerawork. Glad it turned out not to be that kind. If you enjoy light Sci-Fi and have an interest in alien abductions, then you should definitely take the time to sit down and watch "Beyond the Sky".

I was pleasantly surprised by the acting. The debunker has a personal story that drives him, to more than he knows I believe, trying to debunk these "experiences". As a result he comes across like a bulldozer into the eventual love interests, and experiencers life. Yet instead of the usual canned, black and white relationship, in which the debunker must be hit in the head with it before believing a word, his past and/or his concern for the female lead allows him to have more than one dimension to his personality, same goes for his counterpart. Not the same old "rescue" movie, where one figure dominates the other, we get the slow give and take, that is required in any disagreement in any relationship, not to "resolve" an issue, but to understand the point of view of the other, and to not only accept it, but often, to grow from it, is either deliberately or by virtue of the story and acting in this film. This wisdom only took me 53 years and my trust to understand. A genuine respect for each other overcomes the bulldozer fairly quickly. On a deeper more spiritual level, I think this film is bringing us into the age old questions of duality or non-duality with this film (materialism vs. spirit/mind separate but also a part of the natural world). Is it possible for a physical reality or "truth", to also hold a deeper, often spiritual meaning? I think the answer is, yes of course, and that we have just forgotten this basic truth for a Self-Aware conscious being, obviously brought to this point in our "evolution", or made in the "image" of God in that we are self aware and complex creators, if you prefer, for a reason. Within the last 40 years, discoveries in the material world, through science, has reopened the door to the truly "mystical" or "spiritual" and is no longer discounting the accounts of 10's of thousands of people who have had verifiable NDE's for example. But Aliens? How do they fit? I think this film falters a tad with a quick resolution and pulling back the curtain a little to early, but the quality of this refreshing take on an older topic stands solid in my mind. And the respect it gives peoples individual experiences, treating them with dignity was also a great change of pace! Great movie, I gave it an 8 simply because I felt it deserved it at this time in MY life. Perhaps it is a 7, but I would go no lower for films of this budget and in this genera. WELL worth the watch.