High Desert Kill (1989)

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

PLOT: Two hunting buddies, and the nephew of a third hunting buddy, who was killed in a freak lightning-storm accident, go to the high desert of New Mexico for big game. The best friend of the dead uncle carries lots of baggage. The third friend is a gym rat/military guy with some interesting quirks. The nephew has his own multidimensional side. They meet a pro hunter and camp together. Then, many freaky things begin to happen.CAST: Anthony Geary is really a terrific actor, and his years on General Hospital and in various odd 1970's and 1980's flicks give him cred here. Marc Singer is just "that guy" and has the chops to pull it off, from the weight-lifting scene to the jarhead attitude. Chuck Connors delves deep into this role of desert rat, and I think pulls off some great moments.WRITING: Some reviews believe the script was partly ad lib. I don't think so. It looks fairly carefully-crafted. OK, there are a few ideas that left me flat, such as when the desert rat makes a stone grave, as if bodies don't have to brought back to civilization for proper burial, etc. But this film is a series of set-pieces that work, from the initial confrontation with the female campers, to the campfire "orgy", to eating a bear, to final delivery of the strange power.MUSIC: The Native American soundtrack is both authentic and spooky, and is a treat. Many films, especially made-for-TV, skimp on soundtrack, but not this time. It added.FLOW: The scenes don't last long, and they are like vignettes, which makes sense when you get to the punchline here. Therefore, you won't be bored. There are good philosophical lines, and laughable ones. There are intense scenes, and ridiculous ones. But it starts strong, keeps going forward, and the ending doesn't let you down.I give it 9/10.

This was excellent particularly for a made for TV film and it was quite well written and with an interesting plot about an alien doing experiments on humans which are mostly psychological experiments also one of the main characters Dr. Jim Cole, a scientist who does behavioural experiments on animals I thought was a very interesting touch.Also there was some pretty good acting from the four lead actors Anthony Geary, Marc Singer, Chuck Connors and Micah Grant.I also found it interesting scenes where the Alien manipulates them for the experiments to be very interesting and believable.All in all this is a very entertaining Science Fiction horror with an interesting and some pretty good ideas.

This is one wild movie. It just goes to prove that there is still a lot of overlooked great sci-fi yet to been seen. The less you know of the plot, the better. Unfortunately, the video box art and synopsis give away the shock ending. Shame on the marketing department! I could've also done without the opening Indian scene. The acting runs the range from top notch to over-the-top ridiculous, which in my book, works for me. Chuck Conners delivers all the great one-liners in the movie. Marc Singer steals just about every scene with his whacked-out performance. And Anthony Geary holds the whole thing together. There are some unintentional laughs to be had to be sure, which again, in my book works. The story is cool and the symbolism is excellent- especially the very ending. This one definitely falls under the "psychotronic" category. I'd recommend this with a double feature of Project Nightmare, which is also in a similar vein and worth seeing.

The film is very different and good at the same time. Chuck Connors was great. Marc Singer was good and I thought he looked a lot like Kevin Bacon in the film.This movie looked at a different way of aliens. If you like Chuck Connors and strange films about aliens then see High Desert Kill!