If there’s one thing scarier than the supernatural, it’s bad filmmaking. And Encounter with the Unknown delivers that terror in spades. Allegedly based on “true” stories (which is horror-speak for “we made this up in the van on the way to set”), this Arkansas-made anthology film is less a chilling collection of paranormal encounters and more of a public access fever dream narrated by Rod Serling — a man whose voice is the only thing keeping this cinematic séance from slipping entirely into oblivion.
It’s hard to explain the tone of Encounter with the Unknown. Imagine if The Twilight Zone had a spin-off produced by your uncle’s bowling team, directed by a man whose understanding of suspense was based entirely on staring into dark closets and waiting for something interesting to happen. Spoiler: it never does.
Structure: Three Stories, One Disaster
The movie is broken into three stories, each of which falls neatly into a distinct category: “That escalated quickly,” “That went nowhere,” and “That’s just an urban legend, bro.”
Story One: “The Heptagon”
(AKA: Death Comes in Multiples of Seven and Also via Really Awkward Foreshadowing)
We start at a funeral — always a promising sign. Three young men are mourning the death of their friend Johnny, who was killed when a prank involving an old lady and a fake date went horrifically sideways. At the funeral, Johnny’s mother — who is the seventh daughter of a seventh son, which horror movies assure us means she’s legally a witch — delivers a curse that sounds like a riddle written by someone who only reads fortune cookies: “One by land, two by sky…”
Rod Serling ominously reminds us that the prophecy is about to unfold. (He also reminds us constantly that it’s unfolding, just in case you started watching the wall instead.) One guy dies in a car accident. The next one crashes in a plane. The third? Skydiving. Because subtlety is for cowards.
By the time the last victim’s parachute fails, we’re less concerned with the supernatural and more with why this allegedly “true” story sounds like it was cooked up by a drunk camp counselor trying to impress a bunch of fifth graders.
Story Two: “The Darkness”
(AKA: What If Lassie Led You to Hell?)
Set in “rural Missouri” — filmed somewhere that clearly had a single barn and a pit dug over the weekend — this tale involves a boy, a missing dog, and a bottomless hole that groans like a guy stuck in line at the DMV.
The boy’s dad, in an act of supreme parental decision-making, agrees to be lowered into the hole to look for the dog. He screams. He’s pulled back up. He’s now insane. The hole is never explained. The dog is never found. The story ends.
This segment has all the suspense of someone reading a cereal box aloud in a thunderstorm. The scariest thing in it is the rope budget.
Story Three: “The Girl on the Bridge”
(AKA: Hitchhiker, But Make It Sad and Arkansas)
The final tale is just The Vanishing Hitchhiker legend given the Southern-fried Lifetime Movie treatment. A senator and his wife pick up a dazed young woman in white who wants a ride home. Shocking twist: she’s been dead for years. Her dad is grumpy. Her boyfriend died in a crash. There’s a bridge. There’s fog. There’s narration desperately trying to convince you this isn’t just the most recycled ghost story in Western civilization.
By this point, you realize the film isn’t trying to scare you — it’s trying to outlast you.
Acting: A Paranormal Talent Vacuum
To call the acting “wooden” is an insult to lumber. Most of the cast appears to have been pulled from a church potluck and handed their lines moments before the camera rolled. Everyone speaks with the energy of someone politely trying to return a broken toaster at Sears.
Robert Ginnaven as Father Duane gives the film’s most convincing performance, mostly by not blinking through an entire plane crash. Rosie Holotik as the hitchhiking ghost looks confused, which is appropriate, given the script. Michael Harvey as the senator reacts to supernatural events the way most of us react to traffic detours: annoyed, but ultimately unbothered.
Rod Serling: The Ghost of Dignity Past
Now, let’s talk about the actual legend haunting this film — Rod Serling, who somehow got roped into narrating this mess, possibly through blackmail or as part of a community service sentence.
He tries. Oh, how he tries. He injects tension into every syllable like he’s still introducing a Twilight Zone episode, even as the film lurches forward like a sleep-deprived goat. The real horror here is hearing his iconic voice try to breathe life into dialogue that sounds like it was dictated by a confused Ouija board.
Direction & Production: Shot on Location (in Purgatory)
Harry Thomason, in his directorial debut, crafts a film that looks like it was shot on a dare with a flashlight and a borrowed camcorder. Transitions are abrupt. Lighting is optional. The pacing is glacial. Scenes linger far too long on absolutely nothing, presumably to pad the runtime and ensure the audience has plenty of time to reflect on their life choices.
Everything is beige. Everyone is confused. And every story ends with Serling saying, “…and no one ever saw them again,” which might as well be a threat.
Final Thoughts: An Encounter You Can Safely Avoid
Encounter with the Unknown is less of a film and more of a dramatic reading of three half-baked stories overheard at a bus stop, delivered by Rod Serling while you slowly slip into a coma. It’s not scary, it’s not thrilling, and it’s only “true” if you define truth as “hastily Xeroxed from a campfire story.”
Even at a brisk 77 minutes, it feels longer than most geological eras. If you’re looking for real horror, try imagining the look on Serling’s face when he saw the final cut.
★☆☆☆☆ (1 out of 4 stars)
Spooky in theory. Sleepy in practice. Watch at your own risk — but only if you’re immune to boredom and allergic to atmosphere.
And remember: “One by land, two by sky…three by script rewrite, please.”
