I cracked this open as it looked like some 70s UFO-Mania hockem, and, on that front, it started pretty well with a lot of men in uniform talking military-sounding things, and had repeated group laughter done with such a sense of exhausted terror that I had to assume the director had the casts loved ones held just off camera and this was take 173.

Not one person in this shot has experienced mirth before.

When the line “Shadow Delta One” turned up, I stopped asking if it was a parody and realised it was intentionally designed to sound like an 80s toy advert, as this was clearly aimed at an 8-year-old audience. It was also going along at a pace, both narratively and with the editing of cuts that made Michael Bay look positively pedestrian and used only the most exciting moments from a wide range of Ministry Of Defence stock footage to keep things rolling.

Groundbreaking attention to detail.

Similarly, the story ensured you knew exactly what would happen in every moment, by meticulously repeating the details of the last scene and foreshadowing the next all the time. Not that there was much character development going in the first half, which was nothing more elaborate than “USAF plane goes up, sees a UFO, and then lands in some sinister airbase”. However, there was a sense of bureaucratic inertia, which makes me wonder if Terry Gilliam saw it whilst contemplating Brazil.

“Please, let me leave this movie”

That was the point it all went sideways, as it suddenly became a sinister tale of CIA operatives psychologically torturing the Air Force crew into not believing what they just saw. It’s right-wing hysteria, informing its childhood audience that you really shouldn’t trust the government (unless it’s anyone in the military with the rank of colonel or below) as they’re basically communists. And, because this is UFO-adjacent torture porn for toddlers, the evil guys are presented as hyper-competent but, because it’s smart people written by idiots, are also taken apart by third-grade debate club logic.

It was a bold move to drop this just after the “and this is what happened to them next” epilogue.

I can’t pretend this is anything other than Trash, but there is something so strange about this film that I kept having to watch it. It’s tea-time endoctrination for children everywhere, riffing off things like Hanger 18 but avoiding anything fantastical beyond every element of military life. The pure strangeness of it’s presentation is matched only by the undeniable editing skills, lack of real budget, and determination for the disinterested voiceover to do all the lifting work the script couldn’t be arsed to.

“Why, yes. I am interested in lowing my phone bills”

Heartily encouraged for people interested in the kind of made-for-TV filler that crawled it’s way into US TV, and in how we got into such a cultural mess now. There is also a sense of near impressionist filmmaking, as you know exactly what you’re looking at even if the detail is non-existant. Those who don’t have an hour to fill with low-quality paranoid polemics might want to look elsewhere.

The Raggedyman

More info at IMDB