THE WICKSBORO INCIDENT (2003)

Studio:     Vanguard Cinema
Director:    Richard Lowry
Writer:     Richard Lowry, Tor Lowry
Producer:  Bobby Harwell
Stars:     Bobby Harwell, Dan Brinkle, Kyle Nudo, David Arnold, Phillip Brickey, Jennifer Francouer, Carolyn Mejia, Patrick Colson, Donna Brown, Otis Roberts, Myra Harwell Young

Review Score:

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Summary:

Two documentarians unravel a government conspiracy when they interview a man who claims a secret Texas town completely disappeared in 1953.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Los Angeles, 1998 – Documentarians Mike Stenson and Gary Leighton interview elderly electrical engineer Lloyd Piersall, who had been hiding under the alias Joseph Newman for 45 years. Lloyd explains that he began secretly working for the military when he and his associates inadvertently developed a device capable of identifying psychics by analyzing brainwaves.

Lloyd’s lab was broken into and his prototype was stolen. A colonel overseeing the operation implied aliens secretly living among humans took the device because it could detect them.

Lloyd was relocated to Wicksboro, Texas where he fell in love with a local woman named Anna. On October 4th in 1953, intense psychic pain suddenly befell Lloyd and he tore off a watch whose metal intensely burned his wrist. Upon emerging from his laboratory, Lloyd discovered that everyone in Wicksboro had inexplicably vanished. All that remained of Anna was an imprint left in her bed. Speculating that alien conspirators took out the town for fear of who the researchers may have talked to, Lloyd decided to lay low in Los Angeles.

Lloyd reveals that his sister Kathleen then mysteriously died despite only being in her twenties. Lloyd produces newspaper clippings detailing strange deaths of people associated with those who worked in Wicksboro. Lloyd proposes returning to the site where Wicksboro supposedly stood to investigate further.

An anonymous former NASA employee discusses how the government keeps the existence of the aliens, who plan to take over the planet while using the moon as a base, a secret. An anonymous woman claims her father, a former Air Force colonel, was murdered to prevent him from going public about the conspiracy. Robert Patton from the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Investigations counters that he has never found any evidence of aliens existing on Earth.

Using a rebuilt alpha receiver, Lloyd demonstrates how his device can detect aliens disguised as humans. Mike and Gary visit the library to look for evidence of Wicksboro’s existence, but the librarian seeds suspicion that Lloyd is lying.

Mike, Gary, and Lloyd begin driving to Texas to look for Wicksboro’s former location. Along the way, they stop in Sedona, Arizona so Lloyd can mourn at his sister’s grave.

When they arrive at Wicksboro, the men find that nothing remains except for a silo. Lloyd speculates that the government destroyed the town to cover up the murders.

After regrouping at a motel, Lloyd convinces Mike and Gary that he can find the fallout shelter where his workshop was located. Using a makeshift diving rod and shovels, the men dig up a hatch leading to an underground room. There they find Lloyd’s prototype along with the watch he tore off his wrist in 1953.

A state trooper kicks the trio off of the property and warns against returning. The following morning, Mike, Gary, and Lloyd sneak back to retrieve the prototype only to discover the state trooper investigating the hatch with an FBI team.

Identifying the FBI agents as aliens, Lloyd suggests fleeing to El Paso before they are captured. Mike, Gary, and Lloyd pass an abandoned car whose missing driver was apparently shot. To avoid detection by a helicopter circling overhead, the men swap cars with a private dealer.

Mike is unable to reach his wife Alise by phone. Gary is unable to contact his father. Federal agents set up a checkpoint on the road to El Paso, foiling the trio’s escape plan.

Mike contacts an El Paso television reporter to arrange turning over their footage in hopes publicity will protect them. However, Mike, Gary, and Lloyd go back on the road when they return from dinner to find someone broke into their motel room.

The men crash their car on a dark desert road while pursued by another vehicle. Mike disappears. Gary and Lloyd hear Mike screaming in the distance.

With the helicopter still circling overhead at daybreak, Gary and Lloyd try making their way through the desert on foot to nearby Horizon City. A sniper suddenly kills Lloyd, forcing Gary to run and hide until nightfall.

In the darkness, Gary makes his way to a building where he hides from federal agents. Hiding in a dumpster, Gary makes a final recording to explain that he contacted Robert Patton for help. The documentary concludes with obituary clippings identifying Lloyd as having died from a heart attack, Gary dying suddenly, and Mike dying in a car crash along with his wife and son.

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Review:

IMDb and Amazon identify 2003 as “The Wicksboro Incident’s” release year since that is when it debuted on DVD.  The movie screened as early as 2001 however, as evidenced by a Variety review from August of that year, which puts it in even closer proximity to “The Blair Witch Project” (review here) and the birth of the “found footage” boom.

Every microbudget movie shot in a first-person format back then was accused of being a “Blair Witch” rip-off whether the claim was warranted or not.  The subgenre had yet to achieve peak saturation, so BWP remained the barometer for measuring and/or comparing anything that fell into the “found footage” category.

Consequently, nearly half of all IMDb user reviews for “The Wicksboro Incident” mention BWP, as does Variety’s aforementioned coverage.  Other than being a faux documentary likely inspired by its counterpart’s success though, “Wicksboro” has little in common with “The Blair Witch Project.”  I assume the errant association is merely a holdover reference for criticizing any “found footage” film that followed after 1999 until “Paranormal Activity” (review here) reset the bar a decade later.

“The Wicksboro Incident” actually mimics one of those “UFO Files Exposed” shows that aired in late-night syndication back when “The X-Files” was in its prime.  Made by two brothers and a handful of family and friends, “Wicksboro” is clearly a homemade effort definitely dated to its turn-of-this-century production year, yet that’s precisely why I find the film appealing.  Right down to its synthesized score, the movie fondly reminds me of smirking at quickie conspiracy theory series while waiting to fall asleep in the days before 1am programming slots were taken over by Joey Greco and “Cheaters.”  Should you have similarly nostalgic affinity for old school alien-oriented “reality” TV, you’ll appreciate “The Wicksboro Incident’s” incidental recreation of that aesthetic, even though the flick can be uneventful at times.

The ramp-up remains engaging largely because the movie’s lead actor is flat-out fantastic.  Forget Heather Donahue.  Never mind Katie Featherston.  If “found footage” horror had awards for acting, Bobby Harwell would win every one of them.

It’s not a flashy bells-and-whistles performance by any means.  But playing an elderly electrical engineer who claims he can expose a government cover-up from 1953, Harwell is so completely convincing as Lloyd, he will cause you to question every talking head you ever considered credible in a nonfiction UFO documentary.  Because if he can come across as this authentic, who in the real world might be an equally talented liar?

I don’t know how much of Bobby Harwell’s dialogue may be improvised since more than one person gets credit for writing a script, yet every word out of his mouth sounds believable.  If you randomly came across a clip of Harwell playing this character out of context, there’s no way you would immediately know Lloyd wasn’t a real person.  Perhaps the most unfortunate consequence of “The Wicksboro Incident” being mostly undiscovered is that no one scooped up Harwell to reprise this kind of role in a bigger production.

Harwell’s rapport with the two men playing filmmakers Mike and Gary pays huge dividends in making the plot seem like it develops organically.  Together, the three men investigate Lloyd’s claim that he developed a device capable of detecting aliens living among us on Earth.  To keep the conspiracy secret, the U.S. government destroyed the Texas town of Wicksboro where Lloyd’s research took place.  45 years later, Lloyd is the only remaining person who remembers what happened, and he wants Mike and Gary to help him prove Wicksboro existed.

Outside of this trio, none of the other characters, which consist of nameless men in black and various authority figures seen only in quick cutaways, develop into meaningful personalities.  Ordinarily, this might be a strike against an underwritten movie.  Given “Wicksboro’s” premise, the conceit instead works in the film’s favor since almost everyone who isn’t Lloyd, Mike, or Gary becomes a faceless entity contributing to a greater cabal.  There’s a genuine sense of uncertain danger because the conspiracy is so vaguely defined.  For once, following a loose outline without concrete fiction enhances the mystery.  It’s another boon that amateur actors don’t have to appear excessively and risk breaking up the fantasy.

Director Richard Lowry does a good job emulating expected documentary style.  We get the usual slow zooms into and out of grainy old photographs that Ken Burns made commonplace.  Then again, we also get early segments with interviewees who are largely cursory inclusions in light of how little impact they have on the back-half action of G-men chasing Lloyd, Mike, and Gary through Texas deserts.

Really, that becomes “The Wicksboro Incident’s” most significant sin.  It’s only 70 minutes short, and inconsequential asides suck up some of that runtime with random runarounds and boring backstory bits.  Hard pressed to pack the film full of compelling content, “The Wicksboro Incident” then hiccups into an unsatisfying conclusion that might spark a question about the filmmakers running out of time, money, or more likely, good ideas.

Ultimately, “The Wicksboro Incident” isn’t as cool as “Alien Abduction: Incident in Lake County” as far as handheld extraterrestrial horror goes.  But it is one of the most engaging alien-based “found footage” films out there, particularly when taken as a nifty time capsule of late 1990s/early 2000s TV-grade video production.  Assuming a game imagination willingly meets low-budget shortcomings halfway, storytelling gaps paved over with forgettable fluff and cheap camerawork pale in comparison to the earnestness expressed by everyone involved, especially in the exceptional Everyman acting of Bobby Harwell as Lloyd.

Review Score: 65

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