ubik-11

I'm glad someone did this before it was too late. In some ways it really *was* too late, as some of the old-timers were already gone by the time this was filmed. This is an objective, even sympathetic, document of pre-abduction contactees.

The Aetherians, including George King (aka "Aetherius") are here. There's some great B&W footage of King channeling the Space Brothers, and some more recent footage of his followers in Hollywood charging the psychic battery. Watch for King in his regalia, talking about Jesus. It doesn't get any better!

Howard and Connie Metzger are here, talking about the good old days of contacteeism (including Giant Rock), plunking on the piano, telling jokes, ridiculing more recent abductees. He shows us the model in his garage, too. She really loves him. You tell 'em, Howard!

The Giant Rock footage includes film of the great George Adamski himself. He died long before this film was made. I'm glad some old footage of him made it into the film.

Dan Fry is here. He doesn't say much... just sits on the nursing home porch, rocking and laughing to himself at something unseen. At the joke he pulled on all of us, perhaps?

There are others: Rev. Frank Stranges, the Unarians, the Blue Rose Ministries, and others who I've forgotten for the moment. All are worth the price of admission.

If you have *any* interest in what the early UFO movement was like, pick up a copy of this one-of-a-kind film. You'll be glad you did.

And I've seen a lot of them. There is more stock footage in this thing than any movie I know except "Jungle Hell" (1956). The only difference is that "Jungle Hell" was all elephants. This one's all sea lions. On and on and on about the stupid sea lions while the stupid crew in their stupid boat looks for stupid Juan Francisco.

Much of the stock footage that isn't sea lions is native women of the South Pacific. I don't know if the editors were blind or what, but whoever was in charge of splicing the stock footage together didn't seem to mind that the women were mongoloid one minute, negroid the next, and caucasoid the next. They change races with surprising speed.

There is another prominent stock footage scene. An octopus in an aquarium (you can see him stick to the glass, and you can see the reflection of lights on the glass) battles a moray eel. The eel is defending all his little fish buddies from the mean old octopus. I'm not making this up. This is presented as if it were happening in the ocean for crying out loud. Who wins? Watch and find out!

Lots of stock footage of men fishing provides for some humor as the overdubbed voices say things like, "Watch out for my face." But it gets tiring after several minutes of the same stupid footage of the same stupid men catching the same stupid fish.

Alas, there is one more big stock footage scene. This one's of the devil monster. It's not a devil, and it's not really a monster. What is it? Let's just say it's not the kind of monster you were hoping for. Juan, who they did find at the end of all those sea lions, battles the "monster". Again, you'll have to watch to find out what happens.

What really surprises me is that the IMDB says this was edited down from a longer, older movie. That tells me that (1) someone thought the original was worth redoing, (2) someone thought this version was better, and (3) the original must've been worse. I can't imagine.