Pelon lähettiläät

INTRUDERS is a pretty good exploration of the alien abduction phenomenon, based on a book by real-life abductee Budd Hopkins. As a three hour TV movie it holds the attention throughout, boasting an excellent turn from Richard Crenna as a psychiatrist who gets drawn into the unusual reports from one of his patients and ends up leading a crusade against government cover-ups.

The only real negative thing about INTRUDERS is that it was made in the 1990s, where all such TV movies inevitably look cheap and ramshackle to modern audiences. Indeed, there's an often cheap and cheesy look and feel to the production, which saps the realism. But there are also many reasons to tune in, as this is a drama that narrowly predates THE X-FILES and handles an outlandish subject matter in a surprisingly mature way.

The film is also rather frightening for its time, focusing extensively on the abduction scenes; there are lots of nightmarish moments involving the "Greys" here, and the spooky atmosphere is understandable when you find out that Dan Curtis (proponent of many a 1970s TV horror flick) is the guy who directed it. Crenna was always an underrated actor and I can't help but feel this might be one of his greatest late stage performances.