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Love & Saucers (Terror Vision) Blu-ray Review
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Love & Saucers (Terror Vision) Blu-ray Review
Released by: Terror Vision
Released on: May 31st, 2022.
Director: Brad Abrahams
Cast: David Huggins
Year: 2017
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Love & Saucers – Movie Review:
Brad Abrahams’ sixty-five minute 2017 documentary, Love & Saucers, takes us to Hoboken, New Jersey where we meet a seventy-two year old man named David Huggins. On the outside, David is a pretty average guy. He lives in a nondescript apartment that houses an extensive collection of genre films on VHS and he’s worked part time at a nearby deli for years, becoming a bit of a staple in the neighborhood. What makes David unique, however, are his claims that when he was seventeen years old he was abducted and lost his virginity to an alien named Crescent.
David has used these experiences in the decades since this encounter as inspiration for his paintings, all of which are based on memories, some specific and some vague, of what he went through. He states that he impregnated Celeste, that she gave birth to their child and that he was introduced to other alien beings during his time off planet, and a lot of these odd details work their way into his eerily simple and sometimes somewhat surreal painted art.
As we learn David’s story through interviews with the man himself, we meet his son and a few others believers who talk briefly about David’s experiences, and we see his paintings begin to draw some attention from the art world, eventually getting a well-attended gallery showing.
It’s entirely possible that all of this happened in the active imagination of a teenager who was seemingly obsessed with science fiction films and who may have had some mental issues, but David as interviewed in the movie is a calm, rational sounding person and he doesn’t come across as crazy. He’s likeable and perfectly calm, seemingly resigned to the fact that a lot of people think he’s nuts and simply don’t believe him.
Is Huggins telling the truth? Well he certainly seems to believe he is. Of course, there’s no way to know as there just simply isn’t any evidence to confirm or refute Huggins’ stories. That said, if this is a bit, it’s an extremely committed bit, you never once get the impression that Huggins is lying, no matter how bizarre and, at times, absurd some of his more outlandish claims get. While Abrahams’ film could and should have done a better job of diving deeper into its subjects psyche and interviewing those who know him personally, it gets full marks for not spinning any sort of agenda with its approach to the subject matter. You never get the feeling that Abrahams is spinning anything or out to do anything other than simply get Huggins’ story documented – on that level, even if we’re left wanting a more pensive examination of the movie’s subject, Love & Saucers is a success.
Love & Saucers – Blu-ray Review:
Terror Vision brings Love & Saucers to region A Blu-ray on a 25GB disc with the sixty-five minute documentary taking up just over 17GBs of space on a 50GB disc and framed at 1.78.1 widescreen. This is all shot on digital video and it looks clean, crisp and nicely detailed. It isn’t a fancy looking movie, it’s mostly made up of interview clips and footage showing off David’s paintings, but the video quality lets us take it all in, showing off the décor in David’s apartment and the details in the brush strokes in his artwork.
An English language audio option is in 24-bit DTS-HD 2.0 Stereo with removable subtitles available in English only. The interviews all sound perfectly crisp and clear and the audio is balanced well enough and free of any hiss or distortion. No problems to note here, the movie’s odd soundtrack sounds quite good as well.
The first extra on the disc is an audio commentary with director Brad Abrahams and producer Matt Ralston that goes over how and why they decided to make this project, what it was like working with David Huggins, how they got the different participants involved in the picture and quite a bit more.
The disc also includes a twenty-seven minute Q&A with David Huggins recorded at PhilaMOCA on December 15th in 2017 that took place at a screening of Love & Saucers. He talks about not having any hesitation to let a documentary film team explore his life, his thoughts on how the film turned out, how his art was basically a hobby until word got out about it, dealing with the media, his situation with his ex-wife and what their relationship is like, details on some of what is depicted in his paintings and memories of the events that inspired them, how the book that was written about his experiences came to be, how he decides what to paint and why and quite a bit more.
There are also a host of interviews here, all conducted over video conferencing by Abrahams, starting with a twenty minute piece with composer Derek Reneman where he talks about his work as a composer and the specific type of music that he creates, how he wound up working on the movie and what he tried to bring to the production.
Cinematographer Munn Powell speaks for twenty-four minutes about how he wound up being asked to shoot the movie by Abrahams, what it was like working with the director, his thoughts on the title of the movie, his work on Napoleon Dynamite, thoughts on Huggins himself and how listening to the racy parts of his tale is like hearing your grandfather talk about sex!
Julian Feeld, the host of the QAnon Anonymous, talks for twenty-six minutes. He talks about his podcasting work and then goes on to discuss how he learned about Huggins and his art, some of the different theories that revolve around alien abductions, his thoughts on debunkers and why Huggins' work resonates with him.
Up next is a seventeen minute session with artist Rob Corradetti. He speaks here about his love of alien artwork, what's inspired him, his style and influences, working in the underground comic scene in New York City, the influence of skate art, how he came to know who Huggins was and his thoughts on the man's artwork, meeting David Huggins at an art show, and his thoughts on if he'd want to have an alien experience or not.
Professor Jeffrey Kripal is up next in an eighteen minute talk that covers his work in the field of aliens and the paranormal, the frequent use of religious motifs in depictions of abductions, his own experiences talking to Huggins and his own involvement in all of this, difficulties in getting objective evidence to prove these types of stories, recent U.S. government releases of footage of unidentified flying objects and more.
Richard Hatem, screenwriter of The Mothman Prophecies, gets a full half hour to talk about his work as a screenwriter, his television and movie work, how he came to be interested in the strange and the paranormal, writing the script for The Mothman Prophecies and acquiring the rights to the story, how he came to know David Huggins' story and art as well as his relative obscurity, the different emotions that are evident in his paintings and the impact that they carry.
Rob Kristofferson, the host of the Our Strange Skies podcast, speaks for twenty-nine minutes. He talks about his work as a U.F.O. researcher and his podcast, the saturation in the field that exists these days, his thoughts on the influence of science fiction on certain encounters and the lack of influence on others, his own experiences seeing U.F.O.'s, his thoughts on Huggins' story and the details of it.
Last but not least, none other than famed underground cartoonist/artist Robert Crumb is on deck for a twenty-five minute discussion that goes over his own interest in flying saucers and alien abductions, how he first learned about Huggins and his art, buying some of his paintings, what appeals to him about Huggins' work, his own beliefs about U.F.O.'s and the paranormal.
Menus and chapter selection options finish out the extras on the disc, and some reversible cover art is also included with this release.
Love & Saucers – The Final Word:
Love & Saucers is as simple and straight forward in its execution as it is strangely compelling. The Blu-ray release looks and sounds good and contains a really strong selection of extra features that further explore its subject matter and explore the documentary’s origins. Recommended.
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