What more does an ambitious and enthusiast director have to do in order to be taken seriously in the hypocrite world of Sci-Fi/horror film-making? Mike Gray, the co-writer of "The China Syndrome", made an extremely adequate and transcendent motion picture on the topic of Fist Extraterrestrial Contact, and yet it remains unknown and unloved to this day. Moreover, the few reviews of "Wavelength" that you do stumble upon automatically dismiss the film – probably without even having seen it – as a nugatory imitation of Steven Spielberg's success films "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "E.T". These reviews couldn't be more adrift, as "Wavelength" has nothing in common with the sappy and naive blockbusters of Spielberg. Instead this is an intelligent and demanding story, with an absolute minimum of needlessly sentimental sub plots, about the paranoia regarding alien visitors and first contact through telepathy. Young lovers Bobby and Iris discover a top secret military research center, cleverly disguised as a country estate in the middle of the Hollywood Hills, and learn that the government holds captive three little aliens that supposedly crash-landed on earth two weeks earlier. Well actually, there were four, but the military dissected the fourth one and all the people involved in this process died. That's the reason why the visitors are considered unfriendly and definitely 'not coming in peace'. From within their hermetically sealed off freezers, the aliens seek psychic contact with Iris, and eventually the couple manages to liberate the alien trio and escape into the Mojave Desert.
Be advised; - "Wavelength" is an extremely slow-moving and unspectacular film, but truly the emphasis here lies on the coherent script, the detailed character drawings, the tiny but accurate details and the ongoing preparations for the downright fantastic climax sequences. If you ever get the impression, halfway through the film or so, that the plot is going nowhere and action is urgently required, please persevere and never cease to pay attention because you will be rewarded. The final sequences in the Mojave Desert are more than stupendous, with a maximum usage of the impressive landscapes and some special effects that are downright breath-taking. Without revealing too much, the Mother Ship eventually does return for the missing aliens, and it looks truly phenomenal! "Wavelength" unquestionably also benefices a great deal from the music by Tangerine Dream and the very fine acting performances of Robert Carradine and Cherie Currie. Together they form a very unusual movie couple, because Carradine is mostly famous for playing a prototypic nerd in "Revenge of the Nerds" and Currie is primarily a rock-chick and the lead vocalist of "The Runaways".
Unfortunately, but inevitably, the film also features some shortcomings. The absolute main default, which sadly affects the plausibility factor a great deal, is the lamentable depiction of the extraterrestrial visitors. Fairly early in the film Carradine's character, upon sighting the aliens in their iceboxes, that they look just like children. I presume this was Mike Gray's way of warning us that he didn't have much of a budget to work with and thus couldn't afford mechanical little E.T's. The illustration on the video box still suggests a genuine visitor, but the aliens really are, in fact, young children with shaved heads and slightly tanned skins. Obviously their appearances take away a lot of mysterious atmosphere and creepiness and, if you focus on it too much, the whole thing even becomes a bit silly. Nevertheless, "Wavelength" remains a courageous and highly imaginative Sci-Fi sleeper that really ought to be re-discovered by the fans of the genre.
Be advised; - "Wavelength" is an extremely slow-moving and unspectacular film, but truly the emphasis here lies on the coherent script, the detailed character drawings, the tiny but accurate details and the ongoing preparations for the downright fantastic climax sequences. If you ever get the impression, halfway through the film or so, that the plot is going nowhere and action is urgently required, please persevere and never cease to pay attention because you will be rewarded. The final sequences in the Mojave Desert are more than stupendous, with a maximum usage of the impressive landscapes and some special effects that are downright breath-taking. Without revealing too much, the Mother Ship eventually does return for the missing aliens, and it looks truly phenomenal! "Wavelength" unquestionably also benefices a great deal from the music by Tangerine Dream and the very fine acting performances of Robert Carradine and Cherie Currie. Together they form a very unusual movie couple, because Carradine is mostly famous for playing a prototypic nerd in "Revenge of the Nerds" and Currie is primarily a rock-chick and the lead vocalist of "The Runaways".
Unfortunately, but inevitably, the film also features some shortcomings. The absolute main default, which sadly affects the plausibility factor a great deal, is the lamentable depiction of the extraterrestrial visitors. Fairly early in the film Carradine's character, upon sighting the aliens in their iceboxes, that they look just like children. I presume this was Mike Gray's way of warning us that he didn't have much of a budget to work with and thus couldn't afford mechanical little E.T's. The illustration on the video box still suggests a genuine visitor, but the aliens really are, in fact, young children with shaved heads and slightly tanned skins. Obviously their appearances take away a lot of mysterious atmosphere and creepiness and, if you focus on it too much, the whole thing even becomes a bit silly. Nevertheless, "Wavelength" remains a courageous and highly imaginative Sci-Fi sleeper that really ought to be re-discovered by the fans of the genre.