Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County

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Let's take a trip back to the late 90's for a bit. 'X-Files' was all the rage, along with the idea of UFOs, aliens, and my worst fear at the time, abduction. My fear of this was so bad that I actually avoided 'X-Files' altogether, considering it just too scary for me. Fast-forward to today, however, and I personally consider these ideas kinda silly. Possible, just not really plausible. Much like hauntings, they've become something more fun to think about and hear stories about than something I truly believe in.

However, back in '98, 'Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County' was aired on prime time TV, and let's just say I didn't make it all the way through due to it being far too real for me to wrap my head around. Take a second to remember the impact 'The Blair Witch Project' had on audiences in its day, often dubbed the first found footage movie (first to hit theaters, anyway). This was one year before, and aired on TV, which made it a little more real.

This actually completely takes its idea from something extremely similar released in 1989 known as 'The McPherson Tape' (so yeah, IT actually came first). The only differences really being that this is much closer to the found footage acting and scenarios found today, and takes place at Thanksgiving. The McPherson Tape takes place on a little girl's birthday in 1983. They are both basically the same idea - a small group go out to a fuse box to check on a power outage, witness some aliens, and then try to make it through the night with their wits about them. It's all pretty laughable by today's standards, but back before found footage was a subgenre, this was about as real as it ever got for me.

Nowadays, to recommend watching either version seems silly. The only reason to, is to say that you saw some found footage that predates 'The Blair Witch Project'. Otherwise, 'The McPherson Tape' is really just a lot of babbling, talking and noise (which, to be fair, adds an element of reality to things) and 'Incident in Lake County' just has all the tropes your average movie of this type does. The cameraman is pretty much bound to be told off for filming, there has to be an angry guy going against everything, and of course, a lot of shaky cam during intense moments. At this point, this is the baseline for any found footage film, and it's very easy to throw away.

I am, however, glad that I took the time to sit through both versions of this. It's one of those fine examples of seeing how much impact a movie can have on someone for its time. Again, predating 'Blair Witch', you really didn't see this kind of thing, unless you managed to get your prying eyes on a little number called 'Cannibal Holocaust', originally released in 1980 and banned almost everywhere. It's funny what the idea of aliens did to our fear factors, especially when you watch these, which portray them a bit more as curious, seemingly harmless beings. It just goes to show that the fear of the unknown is a very powerful thing, at least until that unknown thing is revealed to be a bunch of actors in masks and black clothing.

1/5

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