It's a fairly standard science fiction drama film for the most part. What ever it did or does is serviceable, but for a quick (90 minute) film like this, there is essentially only enough time and energy to devote to one major storyline and its plot elements involved. This is much in the way that, say, Star Trek Wrath of Khan had enough time and focus for the Kirk/Khan rivalry, and not for a miscellaneous Klingon incursion on top of that.
This film makes that mistake by essentially sabotaging itself with two contradicting plot points that very likely end up with fairly reasonable plotholes that would not stand up to scrutiny.
The basic plot of the film is there is a documentary maker, Chris, who is focused on alien abductions and is convinced that abductees are recounting false memories brought about by trauma in their lives. How he attempts this is fairly belligerent and stupid, but it quickly gets dropped when he has an alien-y experience in a town similar to one he had as a child and he goes to a local girl, Emily, to discuss it. All the while he has some notable hostile encounters with Bill, some guy who makes money off the "alien abduction" business.
There's a fairly lengthy middle section to the film that introduces Native American characters who do some kind of ceremonial ritual which seems to not have any relevance to the plot going forward.
After all this, we get to what would have been the film's main storyline revelation; Bill, making references to MKUltra experiments, has been kidnapping random townspeople, drugging them with hallucinogenics, and staging "alien abductions" in his shack out in the desert, essentially exploiting the entire False Memory Syndrome concept Chris had begun with in order to make money off UFO conventions.
This, at least to me, ranks up there with diabolic plans alongside using a Portal-type technology to steal cable TV from someone else's house. How ever much money there is to be made among the UFO convention circuit, I cannot imagine it is enough to invest in literally military-grade hallucinogenics, lights, costumes, props, and the constant risk of getting arrested while kidnapping people and driving them out to the desert to stage an alien probing.
Regardless, it's a fun, wacky, interesting idea to play with for the narrative, and there's plenty of time left in the film by the time this happens to actually do something with it.
Instead, literally as soon as Our Heroes break out of the shack in the middle of the desert and run outside, they encounter a real life actual UFO which Force Chokes Bill to death and abducts them for real, using the same methods that previously we thought was somehow being orchestrated by Bill.
The quick and clumsy way the film transitioned to this new plotline leaves it with not enough time to actually do anything with it. However, this doesn't stop the filmmakers, as they proceed to add an entirely separate third storyline plot idea to the film which is literally dropped with a figurative "Oh hell no" by the protagonists without any argument.
The whole new plot element is: These aren't actually aliens, but time travelling humans who have evolved to be super logical and who are apparently abducting people to test out if erasing people's traumatic memories would do something good or bad to their own future or something. The protagonists essentially say "No, take us home" and the Future Humans do exactly that without any protest.
Three entirely separate ideas, all with great potential for at the very least an interesting story, are instead all crammed together in a single 90 minute film and given no room to do anything beyond show up as a plot twist, then subsequently leave to make way for the next twist, and then the ending.
Nothing else is done with the film to make it particularly effective in any other way. The acting is average, the dialogue is serviceable, the props and costumes are there. Too much of the film hinged on what amounted to three completely different stories, none of which were given enough time to be told.
This film makes that mistake by essentially sabotaging itself with two contradicting plot points that very likely end up with fairly reasonable plotholes that would not stand up to scrutiny.
The basic plot of the film is there is a documentary maker, Chris, who is focused on alien abductions and is convinced that abductees are recounting false memories brought about by trauma in their lives. How he attempts this is fairly belligerent and stupid, but it quickly gets dropped when he has an alien-y experience in a town similar to one he had as a child and he goes to a local girl, Emily, to discuss it. All the while he has some notable hostile encounters with Bill, some guy who makes money off the "alien abduction" business.
There's a fairly lengthy middle section to the film that introduces Native American characters who do some kind of ceremonial ritual which seems to not have any relevance to the plot going forward.
After all this, we get to what would have been the film's main storyline revelation; Bill, making references to MKUltra experiments, has been kidnapping random townspeople, drugging them with hallucinogenics, and staging "alien abductions" in his shack out in the desert, essentially exploiting the entire False Memory Syndrome concept Chris had begun with in order to make money off UFO conventions.
This, at least to me, ranks up there with diabolic plans alongside using a Portal-type technology to steal cable TV from someone else's house. How ever much money there is to be made among the UFO convention circuit, I cannot imagine it is enough to invest in literally military-grade hallucinogenics, lights, costumes, props, and the constant risk of getting arrested while kidnapping people and driving them out to the desert to stage an alien probing.
Regardless, it's a fun, wacky, interesting idea to play with for the narrative, and there's plenty of time left in the film by the time this happens to actually do something with it.
Instead, literally as soon as Our Heroes break out of the shack in the middle of the desert and run outside, they encounter a real life actual UFO which Force Chokes Bill to death and abducts them for real, using the same methods that previously we thought was somehow being orchestrated by Bill.
The quick and clumsy way the film transitioned to this new plotline leaves it with not enough time to actually do anything with it. However, this doesn't stop the filmmakers, as they proceed to add an entirely separate third storyline plot idea to the film which is literally dropped with a figurative "Oh hell no" by the protagonists without any argument.
The whole new plot element is: These aren't actually aliens, but time travelling humans who have evolved to be super logical and who are apparently abducting people to test out if erasing people's traumatic memories would do something good or bad to their own future or something. The protagonists essentially say "No, take us home" and the Future Humans do exactly that without any protest.
Three entirely separate ideas, all with great potential for at the very least an interesting story, are instead all crammed together in a single 90 minute film and given no room to do anything beyond show up as a plot twist, then subsequently leave to make way for the next twist, and then the ending.
Nothing else is done with the film to make it particularly effective in any other way. The acting is average, the dialogue is serviceable, the props and costumes are there. Too much of the film hinged on what amounted to three completely different stories, none of which were given enough time to be told.