When it came out Wavelength was clearly seen as being made in imitation of the dual successes of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. – The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). (However producer James Rosenfield informs me that Gray actually wrote the screenplay prior to Close Encounters and that the film went into production prior to E.T. but was not released until after due to the lengthy difficulty of the effects sequences). While most Spielberg imitators drowned in mawkish sentimentality, this does the basic story modestly and thoughtfully. The introduction of the aliens via the empathic contact is intriguingly built up. And the standard elements of government coverup paranoia come filled with neat little asides – requests for lip identification prints, government officials complaining about how they never get their briefcases back after official searches and in one memorable sequence a pull back from a scene with Robert Carradine improvising an escape to show that everything is being calmly observed by guards on a video monitor.

But despite promising build up, the film heads in predictable directions. The climax takes place in the Mojave Desert, which is strikingly photographed with the sheer immenseness of the desert dwarfing humans and aliens alike. And there’s some very good effects work involved in the appearance of the mothership as a giant mirrored sphere. But for all its relative effectiveness the film disappoints somewhat – it is geared up but seems ultimately ever so afraid of taking the material in directions that haven’t been mapped out before. Lead actress Cherie Currie suffers from a bad case of camera shyness. And the aliens do not look like anything other than depilated children.