"Alien Autopsy" Review From SIFF

The gigantic three and a half week long beast that is the Seattle International Film Festival came to an end on Sunday night. I got to three movies this year, which is about as many as I realistically expected. "Fido," "Waiter," and finally "Alien Autopsy."
I'm sure that most of you remember the infamous FOX special in 1995, "Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?" Of course, it was fiction. But I remember watching it at age 13 and while I was certainly skeptical...I didn't dismiss it outright. There. I was honest. I got taken in just a little bit. This film tells the story (or a version of the story) of the two men who created it.
Jonny Campbell's film opens ten years after the worldwide firestorm that the special touched off. Documentary filmmaker Morgan Banner (Bill Pullman) is in London to meet with Ray Santilli (Declan Donnelly) and Gary Shoefield (Ant McPartlin). They want to their story to be heard but are wary of skepticism and also the fact that they don't even know how many international laws they've broken. Ray and Gary tell Morgan their story which we see in flashback.
In the spring of 1995 Ray made money selling pirated videos on the black market while Gary worked a thankless job in a gloomy office. An obsessive fan of Elvis, Ray hatches a plan to go to Cleveland, home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to find rare footage of the King, purchase it, and then bring it back home to London and sell copies of it for an outrageous profit. Ray and Gary buy a reel of film from a man named Harvey ("Alien's" Harry Dean Stanton) who tells Ray that he has something else to show him. What he shows Ray will change the world forever. Harvey was in the Air Force in 1947 and was in Roswell, New Mexico on that legendary night in July. Only eight prints were made of the autopsy that Harvey filmed that night. All were destroyed, except for the one that he had managed to hold on to for the last fifty years. Harvey sells it to Ray on the condition that he never breathe a word about who or where he got it from. Ray in turn sells it for a massive profit to mob boss Voros (Gotz Otto). But when Ray runs the film for his family and friends he discovers that it's eaten itself. Taking it out of storage destoyed it a film lab technician informs them. Now with death at the hands of a criminal being the only alternative, Ray must enlist Gary and everyone they know in the creation of a fake.
"Alien Autopsy" is a very entertaining story, told with flair by director Campbell and writer William Davies. British TV hosts, the very funny Ant and Dec, are terrific as Gary and Ray respectively. You can see the genuine dynamic of two long-time friends on screen. Whether or not Ray and Gary's story is true, as Fox Mulder's poster would say, "I want to believe."
Released in Britain over a year ago there is still no release date over here. It was apparently not very well received there, which just seems odd because it's such a likeable little movie. I only wish that the presentation at the Neptune had been better. I could get past the fact that it was shown on digital. Not wild about that but I could let it go. The real problem was that the sound and picture were out of synch for the entire movie. A guy from the Neptune talked to Craig afterwards and told him that they'd tried to fix it but nothing would work. Oh well. I still enjoyed the movie and it made me want to know more about the story of Ray and Gary. I would say "the truth is out there" but that would just be too obvious. But it would wrap up this review in a neat little bow. Hmm. Oh, alright. The truth is out there. So there you go. I said it. Now leave me alone. 7.5/10

The "Alien Autopsy" trailer: