Truly Dreadful Film

Stylish but barely mediocre overall

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This movie appears to try and cash in on the success of "E. T." by telling the story of a (supposedly true) occurrence in Texas almost a century earlier. A little alien lands near a Texas town and befriends many of the locals. Unfortunately his arrival attracts the attention of a few of the wrong people, and things go downhill from there.The story of "E. T.", retold in a time when there was no 20th century technology to work with - not to mention no Reese's Pieces with which to lure anyone out of the woods - could have made for a most interesting movie. Unfortunately, this feature is woefully slow-paced, and the ending is very much a downer. If the story is in fact true, the writers might have been forgiven for taking a little artistic license to pick up the pace a little and keep the audience's attention. The scenes of the alien's interaction with the townspeople (most notably Jack Elam's character) have some magic to them, but the film as a whole just never quite comes together.

In the small Texas town of Aurora in the late-19th Century a tiny man (Mickey Hayes) seemingly fell out of the sky. This sets the tone for really the first legitimately-recorded UFO encounter in the U.S. (this is all supposedly based on a true story) as it seems the little man literally flew around in a small craft and was sent to this planet for some unknown reason. The children are entranced by the little fellow, the townspeople are a little frightened and the fright will ultimately lead to a sad tragedy as misunderstanding and prejudice will come into play. Hayes, unable to speak and harmless, meets old hermit Jack Elam (also somewhat an outcast in the small community) as all this transpires and they start a genuinely wonderful friendship as the two apparent opposites seem to have so much in common. "The Aurora Encounter" is one of those films that just seems to stick with me. The bond between Hayes (who suffered in real-life from a disease called Progeria, an illness which made him literally age about four to five times faster than everyone else) and Jack Elam is one of those cinematically magical experiences that I have a hard time explaining. Hayes, only 14 at the time of this film's release, would indeed die in the early-1990s (living to be only 20) from his horrible disease. This is the only film he ever worked on and his obvious kindness and the sympathy the audience feels for him is definitely undeniable. With all this said, "The Aurora Encounter" is still only an average film by the end. It succumbs to cinematic clichés and an unintentional mean-spirit that did not completely endear it with me. Elam (doing probably the best work of his long career) ultimately gets somewhat wasted because of other performers who really have no business in the movies. The direction is up and down and the screenplay is never sure what it wants to be. The movie just never really found an audience when released in 1986 and just became a very small footnote from the decade. If nothing else though, "The Aurora Encounter" should be watched for the scenes where Elam and Hayes are together playing checkers. As ho-hum as the movie is, the time when they are together on the screen is really something to embrace. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Although I watched this drivel some 15 years ago, Aurora still etches in my mind as the worst film ever created. As well as being completely depressing to watch - this film bored me to death. I finally had to switch it off when there was an hour long scene of some guy playing draughts with the alien. This film has I'm afraid got no redeeming features whatsoever, and I thus recommend that people only watch it as an educational experience to just how dire a movie can be.A complete thumbs down. 0/10

Once in a while a movie is so horrific, poorly made, and of such poor taste that it actually crosses into the realms of what I consider to be an entertaining flick. Aurora Encounter successfully achieves good scores on all the criteria I deem to be important. From the semi-novel plot of an alien encounter set in the past to the annoying synthesizer music throughout to the poorly acted, cheese-puffed dialogue...it satisfied me. Take all the poor production techniques and anti-climactic plot, slap'em together and add the most distasteful choice of all...the use of a CHILD with a degenerative disease as a hideous alien. The people that went along with making this film obviously had no spine for I cannot understand why anyone would take part in the exploitation of a fourteen year old kid! He was going to die soon of this disease! So now that I've established why myself and everyone else that enjoys this picture or has anything to do with it is going to hell, may I also say that I believe this film is the making of a quality B flick and is entertaining on many levels. I've also recently learned that recording artist DJ Shadow samples this film in his album Endtroducing..... An album you should definitely check out. Try and find the sample(s)...it's fun. I'm telling you, there's something special about this movie.