Movie Review: The Phoenix Incident (2015)
The Phoenix Incident is a found footage-style sci-fi/horror film written and directed by Keith Arem. Unlike a lot of other writers/directors we usually see films come through for, Arem has a unique background. Instead of the usual indie movie background, or coming up doing strictly other films, Arem has been in the video game industry for a long time. Most of his background is in the directing and sound departments (even dating back to some early classics we love). He’s worked on everything from Earthworm Jim (1994) to Planetside (2003) and even the popular Call of Duty franchise among many others and his experience translates well to film. The main actors in this film also had a laundry list of experience in the game industry and as voice actors, and everyone involved was just insanely talented overall.
The film starts off as most typical found footage films do. People having a good time with their camera. Usually, it’s a film made about a past time period. In this case, it was 1997. The story is told partially as a documentary about 4 men who disappeared while having a good time in their desert on quad bikes, who liked to often go out and perform stunts. It’s also told from the perspective of the four men and friends who are out in the desert, and the focal point of the story.
The Phoenix Incident itself is based on an actual “sighting” that happened in Phoenix called “The Phoenix Lights” or “Lights over Phoenix”. Using this, and a very clever viral campaign that promoted the film as a real thing (similar to the way The Blair Witch did) the film gained a lot of attention. In an interview, Arem said, “Characters in the film had their own Twitter feeds and websites, and users interacted with them as if they were real people.” There were other viral campaign and marketing ideas that were awesome. The film even has an app on Apple TV where you can earn points the longer you watch to unlock up to four hours of bonus content.
The story continues following the four friends who are just out having a good time when they see some military aircraft overhead and spot a strange-looking craft being engaged. While all of this is happening, the story is also being recounted and told by people on the documentary side of things. The military shoots one of these strange craft down, and the friends decide to check out the wreckage. After that, things really start getting interesting, but we really don’t want to give anything else away, as this film is a great experience.
To sum things up, The Phoenix Incident was fantastic. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but for the budget they had, they made a great film. This was also Arem’s directorial debut in feature films. We have seen a lot of good and bad directorial debuts, and this one is one of the best. The talent involved, the viral marketing, the amazing special effects for the aliens, the story being based upon a real interesting event and incorporating it into the film, and just the overall effort by this team is above the bar here. We sincerely hope that Arem decides to keep making films, as this was definitely a pleasure to watch.
