bradinhanson
For me this movie was gripping and well executed and told. With what they had to work with a 10 is well deserved. I've lately seen movies with A-List actors that are unbearable and cringeworthy. I understand those who are biased give these movies a 10. But I'm gonna do me and bring back traditions that I first fell in love with.
Leofwine_draca
PHOENIX FORGOTTEN is a pretty interesting addition to the overworked found footage genre of film. It ably mixes the science fiction and horror genres and has some nice nostalgia value for those of us who were X-Files fans back in the 1990s. The story is one of mysterious disappearance and strange lights in the sky; the usual alien abduction route, then, but one done with appropriate eeriness. Much of the tale plays out in 1997 and I liked the way that the filmmakers shot on digital, copied their work to VHS, and then re-recorded to digital to give it an appropriately dated look. The performances are adequate and the narrative, although drawn out a little, comes together nicely for a BLAIR WITCH-style climax.
Hellmant
'PHOENIX FORGOTTEN': Two and a Half Stars (Out of Five)A low-budget horror flick about three missing teenagers, that were trying to find the source of a 1997 UFO phenomenon called 'Phoenix Lights' (when they disappeared 20-years earlier). Newly discovered found footage shows the teens' final hours (before they vanished). The film was directed by debut feature filmmaker Justin Barber, and it was written by Barber and T.S. Nowlin. Nowlin also served as a co- producer on the movie, alongside the great Ridley Scott. The cast features Chelsea Lopez, Florence Hartigan, Justin Matthews and Luke Spencer Roberts. The film is your pretty standard 'found footage' low-budget thriller, nothing memorable but nothing too laughably bad either. On March 13th, of 1997, multiple strange lights appeared in Phoenix, Arizona. They were witnessed by several shocked locals, and believed to be a UFO sighting by many. Three teens (Lopez, Matthews and Roberts) went investigating the phenomenon, and went missing. This film picks up 20-years later, on the anniversary of their disappearance, when one of the missing teenager's sister (Hartigan) decides to investigate her brother's disappearance.The movie is definitely nothing original, or scary (in my opinion). It is decently acted and directed though, for the genre. It's based on a real event too, so at the very least the film is somewhat educational. I didn't find it boring, or overly cheesy either. I'd say it's worth at least one viewing, if you're a fan of this type of movie.Watch an episode of our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://youtu.be/KR0HDeT91m0
ericrnolan
"Phoenix Forgotten" (2017) has a couple of things going for it. The first is its use of real events as the MacGuffin for its found- footage horror story — the 1997 mass UFO sighting in Arizona known as "The Phoenix Lights." The second is the young Chelsea Lopez in a lead role. She appears to be a gifted young actress, and she's
astonishingly good here. (The script, too, does succeed in painting her adolescent protagonist as likable and identifiable.)Those two things, however, do not save "Phoenix Forgotten" from being a mediocre movie. It's sometimes slow and occasionally even boring, despite the fact that it picks up quite a bit in its closing minutes.It also feels far too much like a beat-for-beat remake of 1999's "The Blair Witch Project." Yes, it's a different sub-genre, with a science fiction plot device instead of a supernatural threat, and a desert setting instead of the Maryland forest. But its story, its conclusion and even its closing shots parallel that superior film very closely.I'd rate this a 4 out f 10.
AD
