Robert Lieberman’s Fire in the Sky begins with Mike Rogers (Robert Patrick), a logger under a government contract in the White Mountains, racing out of an Arizona forest in the dead of night. Arriving at a local watering hole, the man emerges shaken and nearly catatonic. Only after the police show up does it become clear that one of Mike’s fellow lumberjacks, Travis Walton (D.B. Sweeney), has gone missing. This mysterious opening to the film, which finds the other loggers struggling to articulate what might have happened to Travis, is then supplemented by extended flashbacks leading up to the moment of the man’s disappearance, starting with various montages of the men on a day like any other. By opening in a rush of bewilderment before slowing things to a crawl, Lieberman sets an unpredictable mood that sustains the film for a while.
As the police question Mike and the other loggers under the presumption that Travis has been murdered, Fire in the Sky keeps jumping back into the men’s memories of his disappearance. All the while, other townsfolk and even the men’s own families increasingly give into their suspicions. Then, the film fully and spectacularly reveals what occurred on that fateful night: The loggers stumbled across a UFO and abandoned their friend in a panic when an invisible force struck the man. The disturbing intensity of this scene, of the patch of forest bathed in red and Travis in a blinding white beam of light, contrasts with the drabness of the nearby town where cops and residents alike sneer at what they perceive to be an obvious and weak lie.
The open mockery and condemnation that the townsfolk heap upon the loggers propels the film for a time, particularly when Travis turns up alive and the town is so keyed up over the possibility of his murder that they turn on the still-living man for spoiling their gossip. But the film soon loses its suspense. Throughout, Liberman leans into slightly hazy overlighting, while his camera tends to move in smooth, gliding motions whose gentleness belies the unnatural, eerie quality that’s lent to just about everything (shades of Unsolved Mysteries). But this aesthetic only compounds the sense that the film spins its wheels for much of its runtime.
The dulling of the film’s momentum does, though, set up the most memorable moment, when we finally see what happened to Travis after he was abducted. Having lulled us with a few too many scenes of the loggers stewing in their alienation from their community, Fire in the Sky yanks the rug out from under the viewer, presenting a hellish vision of extraterrestrials studying the Earth with a clinical dispassion that’s chilling. The entire sequence lasts less than 10 minutes, but the calm manner in which Lieberman depicts the cosmic horror of a man’s encounter with alien life reverberates so strongly that it elevates the rest of the film, ending on a powerful note that suggests the terrestrial world’s irreparable displacement from normalcy.
Image/Sound
Shout! Factory’s disc is sourced from a 4K restoration that maximizes Fire in the Sky’s visual strengths. The drab but warmly lit scenes set in the small Arizona town where the film is mostly set have a supple haze to them, while the UFO that the loggers find in the desert pulses harshly with blood-red light. The interior of the spaceship looks best of all, with even the briefest shots showing copious texture and detail that are never washed out by the intense lighting of these scenes. The soundtrack is crisp and makes ample use of all speakers, excellently rendering the film’s use of ambient noise to heighten tension.
Extras
The disc comes with several interviews with members of the cast and crew. Director Robert Lieberman discusses his approach to the film, while composer Mark Isham breaks down the balance between the film’s tranquil, small-town-life scenes and its lurches into cosmic horror. Most erudite is Robert Patrick, who places his performance in the context of his efforts not to get typecast as cold, robotic characters in the wake of Terminator 2.
Overall
Robert Lieberman’s intriguing and occasionally terrifying Fire in the Sky shimmers with maximum menace on Shout! Factory’s Blu-ray edition.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
