Encounter with the Unknown

Oh wow! I saw this back in the '70s when I was eight year old and the story with the hole in ground scared me for at least a year after seeing it. I never knew its name and pretty much considered it lost but after some time searching the internet roughly 40 years year later I stumbled across people who knew the name. Thankfully it's available on YouTube so I could watch it! The show is actually terrible -- the acting laughable at times. But I was too happy to be able to watch it again to care, I thought it was lost forever! Also, I was pleasantly surprised to discover Rod Serling as the narrator as I later became a huge Twilight Zone fan. I gave it 3/10 (like I said, it's terrible) but for me it's fun nostalgia to watch on Halloween.

After so many years of being a horror fanatic, I still don't understand why certain dull movies enjoy a so-called classic status, whereas other fine and effectively scary ones are doomed to remain stuck in oblivion! Take "Encounter with the Unknown", for instance. I had never heard of it before, and that usually means it's not worth discovering, but surprisingly enough this turned out to be a really neat and atmospheric anthology film, with 3 simply yet genuinely unsettling short tales, all revolving around the supernatural.

In the first tale, an obviously terrified young man confesses to a priest on a plane how a silly prank, played by himself and two of his friends, resulted in the accidental death of a neighborhood kid. During the funeral, however, the mother spoke out a sort of curse, and now the boy is persuaded that the three of them will die in freak-accidents. One by land and two by sky, once every seven days. The second story is set in a sleepy little town in Missouri, where a young boy discovers a giant hole in the ground whilst looking for his runaway dog. Ominous sounds and fog emerge from the hole, and pretty soon the entire village gathers around the mysterious place. The father of the boy, who still fears that his dog fell into the hole, finally decides to lower himself into it, but the consequences are tragic. The third and final tale is a famous urban legend known as "The Girl on the Bridge". In the middle of the night, a couple stops at a bridge to pick up a beautiful but clearly confused girl. She requests to be taken home, and even gives the address, but her grieving father already knows what happens next. The girl mysteriously disappears from the backseat again, because she tragically died in a car accident many, many years ago already, when she and her forbidden boyfriend ran off together to get married.

Admittedly, "Encounter with the Unknown" is a very cheap and low-keyed production, and none of the stories contain any spectacular stunts or bloody make-up effects. This isn't the least bothersome, though, because the film thrives entirely on macabre ambiance, intriguing stories, and basic but petrifying locations & set-pieces. This gem is literally chock-full of haunting and nightmarish images, like the old cemetery in the first story, the damping hole in the second and the meandering girl in the third. Oh yeah, and there's another thing that makes "Encounter with the Unknown" unique, and it's perhaps its sole link with stardom. The individual tales are introduced and wrapped up by the warm, absorbing and mystical voice of none other than Rod Serling. All to obviously, this was done to generate a sort of "Twilight Zone" effect, but who cares? In fact, I was all set to reward "Encounter of the Unknown" with a glorious score of eight, or even nine out of ten, but the last 10 minutes nearly ruined everything. For some inexplicable reason, a different narrator finds it necessary so reanalyze the three stories in detail and convince the audience that supernatural powers are all around us. The highlights of the films are repeated again, the curse of the grieving mother even three or four times, and the eerie impact of the overall film almost vanishes completely. If you ever come across this obscure puppy, I recommend it wholeheartedly, but my advice is to press "stop" immediately after the end of the third segment.

Hey .. About this movie i mostly like the first story about the cursed kids in billiards... But the most importantly , I'm really proud of myself and all you people reading this , meaning we that care much about movies that spend dollars to find these old and unique movies and watch em so carefully that come to check out what others think bout em ...!! We dont let the film maker's efforts just be for nothing... Thank you all ... I also should thank the producers of this movie and all alikes for spending time , energy and money to at least try to make something ( Movie ) with low and the loss of equipments at that time like 50 years ago for the 1970's fans and us in 2021 and so on .... Who knows ?? Maybe somebody in 2071 comes reading my Comment and thanks me for my ideas in my time... Lol ..... Ok , let's wait and see...

Encounter with the Unknown (1972)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Rod Serling narrates three tales that deal with the unknown. The first story has three friends playing a prank on a nerdy guy, which ends up getting him killed. At the funeral the dead boy's mother tells the three something that leads to their fate. In the second story, a farm boy and his father discover a mysterious opening in the woods. In the final story, a man is driving across a bridge when he spots a young woman and picks her up. She requests to go to her father's house.

I'm going to avoid spoiling anything in regards to the three stories. With that said, ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNKNOWN is a film that is obviously working with a very low-budget. The film reminded me a lot of THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK and it works in the same way that one did. Both films pretty much had no budgets but this worked to their advantage because it created a real atmosphere. This film here has some rather interesting moments but also some very bad ones.

As far as the three stories go, there's no question that the second one is the best. I thought this one here managed to have the best atmosphere and it's easy to see how this story could scare a lot of the young kids who watched it at the drive-in back in 1972. The first story is without question the weakest because it's incredibly easy to figure out what's going to happen. The third and final story is predictable but I thought it played out in an interesting way.

I'd argue that the "closing speech" made at the end of the three stories wasn't needed and in fact the film would have been much better without it. The performances are mixed throughout the three stories but Serling's narration is quite good throughout. Overall, ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNKNOWN isn't the perfect movie but there's enough here to make it worth watching.

I first saw this film on TV in 1978. I only watched the middle story, however before we switched channels to watch "And Now the Screaming Starts" instead. I was only 7 years old, but the story and images stuck with me all these years. I caught a glimpse of the second story again (the hole in the earth tale) in 1980 in L.A.'s Greyhound Bus Terminal on a pay-per-view TV in the waiting areas. Ever since 1997 nobody on the many horror movie Internet forums could identify this film for me! Finally in 2004 I went to the microfilms at the local library to look up that date in 1980 in the TV listings and that is where the title Encounter With the Unknown came be...well, known (or re-known to me). Not soon after, I won the one-sheet poster on Ebay. On March 30th, 2007, I finally scored A DVD R of this (in great condition) from Retroflicks.com. The film - in all its grainy filmstock, unprofessional acting, Afterschool Special soundtrack music glory...all make for ONE CREEPY VIEWING!!!! Films that are too slick (the ones made today) lack the punch these older films have. In fact, during the first tale, I was afraid to watch this film alone in my apartment. So I watched TVland reruns until I had to wait until my roommate came home before I resumed. As a veteran of watching a darn-near lifetime of horror movies, that's saying a lot! What can be considered production "short-comings" to mainstream movie viewers actually WORKS in this films favor! I bought the whole experience and I, indeed, refuse to watch this one alone. The documentary feel is a hoot to watch. In fact, if this film was digitally cleaned and remastered it might lose some of its effect. Still, I'm glad I'm reunited with an old favorite that has lost none of its appeal all these years. It's exactly as I remembered it.