Two thirds of a decent alien/Bigfoot/mystery film. There was much to applaud in the first hour of this low budget affair - commendably understated and believable performances (from the majority) and the script avoided almost all the common missteps: exposition wasn't laid out in obvious and inappropriate swatches, characters behaved as if their histories were part of them, not plot points existing only to be explained at the earliest and least necessary moments etc. These characters felt real. And even the initial mystery interweaving Bigfoot, extraterrestrials, the sudden appearance of dead bodies and the source of this families dysfunction was crafted competently script wise. I could even look past some minor weaknesses in the actions of authorities, or the behavior of the main characters, in order to see how the whole thing would tie together. I was even willing to try and ignore the truly terrible score, and consistently poor choices in frame composition. And then it all fell apart. Literally. Once the characters decide to band together to defeat the big bad monster, believable character behavior went right down the drain along with logic, any hope of intelligently connecting the story strands and even the dialogue and performances seemed to suddenly intrude from another, more mundane and unrealistic film. Add an embarrassingly staged, shot and edited climax and a resolution that's mind-numbingly lame, and SIGHTINGS unfortunately wastes any points earned by the better-than-average first hour. And the lame resolution (and I am not referring to the stinger at the end) actually includes the illogical comment that because a large number of people claim to believe in aliens and Bigfoot, the majority "refuse to accept this evidence", obviously choosing to ignore that belief is NOT evidence. Evidence involves physical proof. Sadly the script couldn't logically tie up any of its own loose ends, or its increasingly preposterous premise, except to insist "The crazy ones are right". That last half hour makes it impossible to recommend SIGHTINGS as the "diamond-in-the-rough" film I'd hoped it would be; yet it holds out hope for what the filmmakers could possibly accomplish in the future.
Review of Sightings
