The Phoenix Incident

well, found footage movies are usually cheap and nasty affairs and the shaky camera is used to cover bad directing.

This one is different, the characters are believable, the effects are good and the directing is smooth and enjoyable. and here comes the BUT the go pro style footage is far too shaky and swinging, certain segments of the movie are completely unwatchable due to this and mildly nausea inducing.

The characters have lucid moments and are friendly and believable but start screaming and shouting in a manner that is unbelievable and ruins any form connection you have with them.

Nothing new and needs refining

I'll begin by saying that I love found footage movies, although most of them are quite disappointing at some point. However, there's fairly good examples of this genre, such as The Phoenix Incident.

As the title denotes, this film is based on the Phoenix Lights, the biggest UFO sighting in the USA that took place in 1997. I am a fan of the sighting myself, so when I learned what this movie was about I just had to watch it. It was a pleasant surprise! I love how they mixed the real story, with real footage and real news coverage with the fictional story, which is about the disappearance of four men the exact same night the Phoenix Lights took place.

The faux documentary (mockumentary) stile really suits this movie because it kind of makes it feel like it actually happened and we are watching real footage of an alien encounter. Towards the end of the film everything gets a little too repetitive, and for someone who has already seen plenty of found footage movies, this one offers nothing new to the genre. That's why I give it a 6 out of 10. The acting is good though, the special effects are really well worked and the music helps the atmosphere! I don't know, I really liked this movie and I totally recommend it to anyone who's interested either in UFO related stuff or found footage films!

The Phoenix Incident starts off nicely, inspired by actual phenomena and using mockumentary approach to cover the issue. Characters, both from recording and supposed interviews, are relatively convincing. This is one of the better groups seen in found footage genre that audience can easily invest on. Unfortunately, persisting problem of jerky cam, cumbersome editing and frantic off screen view are dominant. One or two might be bearable, but the culmination of them all eventually hampers the movie.

This mockumentary is a collection of tapes surrounding the event of alleged alien or UFO sighting back in 1997. It follows the group of young men as its main plot and then displays the accounts reflecting back to the fated night as well as possible cover up. Most cast of this type are random journalists or awkward family, this one has better on-screen characters, at least before the screaming and blabbering start.

They seem believable as a group of friends, they may fumble with occasional juvenile antic, but a decent cast goes a long way to give a sense of realism, which is the goal of found footage genre. The interview scenes also present air of seriousness, be it may the whistleblowing dialogue or the eyewitnesses accounts.

However, the transition is poor and the camera work is abysmal. For guys whose hobby is filming, these on-screen characters are not handy with camera. This shaky cam can be disruptive, especially towards the latter half where the events are revealed. The movie shows some special effects, presentable yet only a few seconds each.

The movie shows promise early on, but just like many before it, the intrusive shaky cam and awful editing ruin it.

This movie is making me noxious and gives me headaches because of the idiotic camera shakes.

It is not watchable.

And I am tired of those found footages movies.

I'm a UFO fanatic, so I went into this movie with a certain amount of joy to see something different. Granted, I didn't have high expectations, after all, we know that horror and faux-documentary movies are not usually very good, however, the execution of this one was much better than I expected. With a good budget and use of camera techniques, the creators managed to create a film that, despite not being a marvel of special effects, contains well-designed scenes with good entertainment value.

The script is a bit heavy-handed, leaving much to be desired, but it manages to establish certain real-life connections with fictional events in a good way, creating a sort of historical universe within its own limits. The characters are, for the most part, typical cliché examples of movies of this type, but I've seen worse so I cut them some slack. The performances are decent, not the best, but what else can we expect?

Probably what I hated the most was the idiotic subplot about the alien-crazy guy. I found it unnecessary, cliche, redundant and even a bit cringe-worthy, mainly because it didn't add anything interesting to the scene and only served as a sort of punching bag of mysteries.

In the end, it's a short, entertaining movie that manages to combine real scenes with cinematic scenes and creates a somewhat interesting conspiracy story, which although affected by its delirious script and half-developed characters, manages to entertain for 1 hour and 20 minutes without major complaints. Also, the aliens and the development of the scenes is entertaining, as well as the multiple scenes from the POV of the military. It's worth it if you like the genre and feel like killing time.