Documentary Review: Terror in the Skies

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019

Images from the Internet

Terror in the Skies

Directed by Seth Breedlove

Small Town Monsters

68 minutes, 2019

www.smalltownmonsters.com

Folklore horror is a hidden gem that doesn’t get talked about much. Well, apart from the granddaddies of them all, the bigfoot/yeti and the Loch Ness monster. But nearly every corner of the world has their own equivalent mystical creature. For example there is the Jersey Devil, or the Mothman, or even the Gitaskog. Many of these tales arise from the oral cultures of the Indigenous people of the area, but there are many that rarely make it to the mainstream.

One of the things that makes this film different is that director Seth Breedlove has gone beyond the genre into the documentary realm, making it real. This is not a mocumentary like the extremely overrated The Blair Witch Project, but he takes a serious probe into the story we are to be presented.

For this case, we are looking at the giant birds of Illinois. Not birdmen, but birds proper, although to be fair, there is a correlation explained here with the West Virginia Mothman. But the focus here to start is Alton, Illinois, along the mighty Mississippi. The local natives (pre-settlers) called it the Paisa Bird, the stories of which were passed down to the French explorers of the area in the 17 Century.

We’re not talking about just big birds (and not the ones who live on a PBS street), but humungous ones that are described as the size of a Piper Cub airplane, and eats livestock and – you guessed it – human piggies, especially piglets (i.e., kids).

The film begins with a history of these sightings dating back to colonial times by bringing out a slew of experts in the field, including a world renowned crypto-zoologist (not my term). They tell of the eyewitnesses from long ago, where it’s necessary to have a secondhand experience because, well, we’re talking a span of hundreds of years. That being said, most of the sightings in the early part of the film are from the 1940s through the 1970s.

What is my opinion about all these gigantic birds? Y’know, I think it’s possible, though it seems strange that no one has ever captured one, and the tales of people shooting them posit that they burned the bodies because they were scared. I’m on the fence at the 40-minute mark because I do think it’s possible for there to be big birds. Ten to twenty-foot wingspans? Well, that’s easy to mistake. Most descriptions seem to be like condors, which can be believable. And that they come and go, well, there is migration and even small birds can fly thousands of miles away (though I’m still not sure about coconut laden sparrows who are African or European). Perhaps they end up in South America for stretches of time (lots of condors down there). Hell, big pelicans keep migrating up to Saskatoon from Mexico every summer, so I can see the possibility of it all. To sum it up at this point, I’m firmly perched on the fence.

At the 40-minute mark, the film takes a strange turn and for me kind of puts pressure on the vibe when the possibility of these Thunderbirds (as Native Americans call them) are of a mystical nature is introduced. From nature to paranormal, essentially. Suddenly there’s the question of whether they are supernatural harbingers of doom, or multi-dimensional beings. Oh, please.

As the tale moves north to the Chicago area, suddenly we’re introduced to the “Chicago Mothman,” a more human, bat-like creature, reminiscent of the film Mimic (1997). Wisely, the director chooses to be a bit skeptical at this point, mentioning the fact that there are 71 sightings in a city of millions, and not to mention the number of CCTV cameras around. But it is here that we get to start hearing directly from the “witnesses,” though there is still commentary by the experts; that being said, I found the addition of the belief in the paranormal aspect gave loose on their credibility a bit.

Despite my skepticism, which is not to be read as criticism, this is quite a well-put together film, that is the right length for its topic, rather than being longwinded like this sentence. Along with live footage and quite a bit of from-the-sky drone shots (and rightfully so considering the topic), there is also some decently done animation (nothing too elaborate) to demonstrate the eyewitness reports, or what the creature(s) looks like from description to description.

This documentary was actually quite fun, presenting one of the first crypto-zoological animals that I believe could be possible (at least in the first 40 minutes), and kept my interest throughout its hour length.