Fire in the Sky

This modest sci-fi movie treads the same ground as Communion, but more purposefully. The small community of Snowflake, Arizona, is thrown into confusion when loggers return from the forest claiming one of their number has been taken away in a spacecraft. A sceptical special investigator (Garner) shares the locals' doubts, believing the story is a cover for murder...until the missing man (Sweeney) turns up with his own incredible story. The imagery is familiar: scientific experiments in which orifices are penetrated, and womblike interiors representing primal fears about the integrity of the body. Surely this is inner, not outer space. Even so, the handling of the small-town social dynamics, the media circus and the scary special effects provide an engrossing build-up and satisfying pay-off.