![]() ![]() This flies in the face of a short scroll at the start of the film and a voiceover at the end, which seem to indicate that the Hills’ abduction was genuine. There’s enough shown that it could be interpreted either way, as a shared delusion or as a shared experience. What I did find interesting about Incident is that it never actually takes a firm stand on the veracity of the Hills’ story. ![]() If you’re into that sort of thing, this could be a hidden gem, but I (and I think most viewers) were expecting a bit more time to be spent with the alien abduction. That’s perhaps my main issue with The UFO Incident as a whole, that it spends so much time with solo scenes in the psychiatrist’s office. I suppose these scenes wouldn’t have felt too odd to seasoned stage actors like Jones and Parsons (though Jones was the only one whose scenes I felt played well), but watching them now feels like watching acting exercises and not much more. Simon’s prompts to “go on.” The two leads end up performing some of the most bizarre, overwrought monologues I’ve seen: Parsons grimacing as she yelps in staccato, Jones bellowing and crying until snot drips down his upper lip (nearly a quarter-century before Blair Witch, at that). The movie opts instead to focus on the head and shoulders of each as they give their separate recollections under hypnosis, interrupted only occasionally by Dr. Scenes where Jones and Parsons get to act against each other were actually pretty enjoyable, though sadly there are only two or three after the thirty minute mark. It doesn’t make for the most interesting viewing experience, but for a TV movie from 1975 I suppose I shouldn’t be expecting much. The remainder of the movie feels almost like a documentary, with psychiatrist’s-office narration by Barney or Betty interspersed with flashbacks, existing sort of as re-enactments, to their abduction experience. Benjamin Simon (Hughes), a psychiatrist, who suggests treatment via hypnosis. ![]() The first third of its runtime shows Barney and Betty a few years after their experience, growing more and more anxious over the seeming gap in their memory. As I hinted in my opening, it follows a pretty odd structure. I don’t want to get too in the weeds talking about the source material, so I’ll just say that the Hills’ account hasn’t held up to any real scrutiny, and that we now know that the process the Hills went though constructs rather than “recovers” memories (and is now seen as a deeply unethical practice).īut I’m not here to talk about the real Hills or about “Interrupted Journey”, I’m here to talk about The UFO Incident. Fuller, who expanded on descriptions of memories given by the Hills while under hypnosis. Incident itself is based on the book “Interrupted Journey” by John G. Jones and Parsons play Barney and Betty Hill, whose account of alien abduction in 1961 was one of the first of its kind in the United States. The UFO Incident is quite the oddity: it’s a made-for-TV movie that originally aired on NBC in October of 1975 and stars two rather esteemed acting talents in James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons. Starring James Earl Jones, Estelle Parsons, and Barnard Hughes ![]()
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