Communion (1989)

Communion adapts Whitley Strieber's 1987 bestseller, a memoir that billed itself, provocatively, as "a true story."^[1] Directed by Philippe Mora and starring Christopher Walken, the film restages what Strieber said happened at his cabin in upstate New York: being taken in the night by small, spindly figures with enormous eyes, the memory fractured and pieced back together under hypnosis. Mora shoots it as something between a dream and a nervous breakdown, so we never quite know whether we are watching visitors or a mind turning on itself. The film's real weight lies less in its plot than in one image — the large-eyed "Grey" from the book cover, which came close to defining what an alien looks like for a global audience.