Encounter At Raven’s Gate [Incident at Raven’s Gate] (1988)

One of the strongest prejudices you’ll find among the SF fan base (at least here in the US) is a terrible need to have everything explained.

Which is sad, of course.  There are a lot of excellent SF films out there that depend heavily on atmosphere and deliberately leave their mysteries unresolved.

Which brings us to Encounter At Raven’s Gate.

At a lonely farm in the middle of the outback, where an ex-con is staying with his brother and his sexy young wife, strange and inexplicable events keep happening – lights in the sky, strange noises, pets turning on their masters, dead birds dropping from the sky, and the mysterious deaths of their nearest neighbors.

And then there’s a violent opera-loving cop, a love triangle, the increasingly disturbing behavior of the people around them, and a secret government investigation.

It is a stunningly beautiful movie.  It uses the harsh landscape to impressive effect and bathes its interior scenes in color and shadow.  And it all comes to a stunningly anti-climactic out-of-left-field ending.

If you’re expecting all the answers, don’t bother watching it.

But, if you can handle a hefty swig of the unknown and the unknowable, then perhaps this well-crafted little Aussie film is for you.