(1972)
Overall: MEH
Fittingly narrated by none other than Rod Serling, Encounter with the Unknown is a meager-budgeted anthology film with three low-key and unimpressive stories that are vaguely linked together by a faux opening which proclaims that each tale was based on psychic phenomena researched by some doctor. This was Harry Thomason's first venture behind the lens and he exhibits a standard level of inexperience, namely in how humdrum the presentation is. Each story feels longer than it is, which is not helped by all of them having redundant callbacks to pad out the running time. The film was shot in and around Little Rock, Arkansas with a cast that is largely made up of unknowns, which puts this in the regional horror catalog that was still thriving in number if not in box office dollars during the early 1970s. A story about a weird grieving mom cursing some college kids who inadvertently caused the death of her son, another about a hole in the ground the makes some strange noises for hillbillies to investigate, and a third that takes the age ole premise of the lady ghost on the highway are all predictable and lame in such a context. Also, some other uncredited narrator takes over for Serling in the closing minutes and prattles on for eons, once again to pad out the running time.
(1973)
Overall: MEH
For his second low-budget feature So Sad About Gloria, (Visions of Evil), Arkansas-based regional filmmaker Harry Thomason scored a few television actors, including Petticoat Junction's Lori Saunders in the lead. As a troubled young woman who spent some time in an institution after witnessing her father's death as a child, she has a zest for her freedom once released and quickly falls in love with a writer who hangs out in trees. What follows is a bog-standard psychological thriller plot where Saunders' sanity is questioned and we the viewer are left to wonder if her new hubby is behind the gaslighting or the random guy with an axe who chops wood for them without being asked or some dude with an ex who killed a woman in their new house some time earlier or none of the above. Thomason frequently cuts to the same flashes of some other guy with an axe hacking away at a coffin, plus there are numerous montages set to pretty music that while brief in length are large enough in frequency to shut down an already laborious flow. The inevitable twist is easy to spot and ergo lame, (plus there is even another twist in the final moment that is only worthy of a "Buh?" for anyone who is still watching), but the whole movie is innocently stock instead of outright terrible.
(1977)
Overall: WOOF
Unwatchable from top to bottom, The Day It Came to Earth is a failed 1950s B-movie throwback, done in an era where it sticks out like a sore thumb instead of being a fitting nostalgia piece. While regional director Harry Thomason has never done anything good, he has certainly done far better than this Z-grade crap which looks and sounds as if it was made by amateurs and with zero dollars, no idea how cinematography works, and no microphones to properly record anyone. The premise is stupid enough, with a meteor crashing into a lake and reanimating the corpse of a guy who was recently dumped there after being whacked by the mob. Some dopey teenagers find said meteor, they show it to their professor, (played awkwardly by comedian George Gobel), and the plot only becomes more mind-numbingly dull from there. It occasionally comes off that Thomason is going for a comedic tone with some doofy musical cues and deliberate attempts at jokey dialog, but these moments are both inconsistent and never funny. In this respect, the performances are so awful and the presentation so clumsy that it is difficult to tell how much of it is in on its own bad movie charm, if one could be so generous as to consider any aspect of it "charming". At least the zombie makeup looks sufficient, even if said dead guy is only granted a couple of seconds of screen time.
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