User reviews

As another reviewer noted, the hyped "Rankin cluster phenomenon" appears to be total BS. The movie overall has a bit of interest and a few memorable moments.

The first story involves a prank that goes horribly wrong and costs a young man his life, so his witchy mother (in the film's most memorable scene) lays a curse on them at the funeral, although she's never seen to curse the person truly responsible for her son's death. And the guys responsible all die in "accidents" on schedule...

The second story involves a mysterious hole in the ground that appears on a rural farm in the early 20th century. It's just suddenly there one morning. Smoke roils out of it and weird sounds are heard. A local farmer is lowered into it....

The third is the weakest, a rehash of the tired "Phantom Hitchhiker" story that was already a cliché decades before this film was made.

The biggest weakness is that there's so little substance to these stories. Scenes are played over and over and over in obvious attempts to pad it out to feature length. Every story is supposedly based on a "true story" although it seems to either be urban legends or made up from whole cloth. Another amusing bit is in the third story, which has flashbacks to the 20s, and in those scenes were shown a wealthy stylish girl who has long flowing hair...something totally out of whack, as stylish girls of the 20s had bobbed hair! (Of course, by the 70s, long flowing hair was stylish again...) I saw this on a local station back in the 70s or early 80s, and finally came across it again on YouTube. It's cheap hokum, never particularly scary or disturbing, sloppily written and badly edited. Watching it again I can't help but wonder if it was meant to be the pilot for a TV series. It's amusing when one is nostalgic for cheap 70s horror, but ultimately it fails because of the clichéd nature of the stories (except the second one) and the obvious padding. Something with a bit more imagination and more willing to have fun with the material, and even take some liberties with the urban legends, would have been much more enjoyable. The music over the opening credits is memorable, though.

It's difficult to tell exactly what the filmmakers were going for, though. The subject matter is treated very seriously, and much hubbub is made about the three stories being true. They were supposedly based on research conducted by parapsychologist Dr. Jonathan Rankin, but here's the deal: as far as I've been able to ascertain, there WAS no Jonathan Rankin. Apparently the writers of "Encounter" invented him. Still, kudos to them for dressing up this patchwork quilt of urban legends and drive-in exploitation in a halfway-convincing manner. Rod Serling's narration helps (actually, there are two narrators; the other one is uncredited, but he sounds like Lawrence Dobkin). The first story involves a "witch"--the seventh daughter of a seventh son--placing a curse on the young men who were inadvertently responsible for her son's death. The second is based on a little-known Ozark legend about some sort of monster that lives in the bowels of the earth. The third and final tale is a version of the well-worn "Vanishing Hitchhiker" legend. There's not much action, but there are quite a few genuinely creepy moments. The cast features several regulars from exploitation director S.F. Brownrigg's films ("Don't Look In the Basement", "Poor White Trash Part 2"), including Rosie Holotik (who is terrific as the Vanishing Hitchhiker), Gene Ross, and Annabelle Weenick. "Encounter With the Unknown" will look cheap and shoddy to most mainstream viewers, but I think that everyone involved with the film deserves an A for effort. Horror fans will want to give this a look.

Oh wow! I saw this back in the '70s when I was eight year old and the story with the hole in ground scared me for at least a year after seeing it. I never knew its name and pretty much considered it lost but after some time searching the internet roughly 40 years year later I stumbled across people who knew the name. Thankfully it's available on YouTube so I could watch it! The show is actually terrible -- the acting laughable at times. But I was too happy to be able to watch it again to care, I thought it was lost forever! Also, I was pleasantly surprised to discover Rod Serling as the narrator as I later became a huge Twilight Zone fan. I gave it 3/10 (like I said, it's terrible) but for me it's fun nostalgia to watch on Halloween.

I first saw this made-for-TV movie when I was a kid. Three things stuck with me from it. Two are from the first story in the film, which I'll get to shortly. The third was Rod Serling's distinctive voice narrating. Had it not been for Serling, I doubt I would have ever figured out what movie it was I had these memories of. But I did and today I saw it for the first time in decades. The movie is three stories of the supernatural that are supposedly based on fact. One of them is very obviously an urban legend ghost story that was old by the time this film was made in 1973. So that casts doubt on the other two being based on true events as well.

The first story is about three young men who play a prank on another which results in his death. At the funeral, the dead boy's mother places a curse on the three, telling them they will each die over the next few weeks. The rhyming curse is silly but the makers of this film were obviously very proud of it, as they use the scene of her reciting it repeatedly. This is the story that I remember parts of from my childhood. I remember the mother's expression as she cursed the boys, which was scary to me as a child but is funnier now. The other thing I remembered was the boy who played the victim of the prank. He creeped me out back then. Now he looks to me like an inbred Jake Gyllenhaal, which is creepy as well. This segment is OK but not scary like I remembered.

The second story is about some hick people that find a mist-covered hole in the woods that has sounds of something moaning coming out of it. This story starts out well enough but its ending is not satisfactory at all. Still, this was probably my favorite story of the three. What was with that mentally challenged guy though? They showed him running up to the barber early on like he would be significant later. Then, when he shows back up later at the hole with the other men, he doesn't do anything. It's like someone thought "let's just throw this guy in there." Weird.

The third story is the weakest. It's the old "phantom hitchhiker" story we've all read or seen many times before. Overlong, padded segment for such a standard ghost story. Love the clash between 1920s and 1970s styles in their attempt to do a period piece though.

The end result is that it's a watchable movie, enjoyable on some levels. The acting is mostly amateur and the writing, particularly the narration, is weak. Serling didn't write this. It was just a payday for him doing narration work. It does have a sort of '70s atmosphere about it. Fans of that will enjoy it.

The pretense of the plot was that the hole was the gates to Hell. At least that is what I was told on the set. I was the voice of the boy in "the hole". The sound for that was actually done @ Century studios in Dallas. Brian Hooper and myself spent a day doing sound effects and voice tapes. The sound from the actual hole was me in the bottom of a concrete cistern calling "Lady" over and over. Was a very good movie, being able to work with Harry Thomason and meeting Rod Sterling was a great thrill for me as an eleven year old kid. Brian Hooper was almost my step father, and still remains a great friend. He bought me my first car when I turned 16. He is now retired and living in East Texas on a farm. My mother was a script girl on this gig, she was credited at the end Jackie Barnes and I was uncredited, Brian was who got us involved, an got my Mom her start in the industry. I just got a DVD copy and I am watching it as we speak. I haven't seen this in over twenty years. My 15 minutes.

Despite clearly having been filmed on a low budget (on location in Arkansas), the fairly creepy anthology film "Encounter with the Unknown" does establish a respectable atmosphere. It's co-scripted by director Harry Thomason, taking its inspiration from three urban legends. Given that legendary 'Twilight Zone' creator Rod Serling is involved, it's nothing if not interesting. It examines ideas such as the dividing line between illusion and reality, the power of the human mind - or, to be more specific, the power of belief - and the concept of witchcraft.

Serling is one of two narrators - the other gentleman is used for the opening two minutes and during the final ten minutes - and does his usual commendable job at drawing us into these stories and giving us the alleged facts of each case. Each of these tales has some potent and chilling moments, and the cast is generally good.

The first tale revolves around college student Frank (Gary Brockette) confessing some strange occurrences to helpful priest Father Duane (Robert Ginnaven): weeks earlier he and his buddies had played what they thought was a harmless prank on a simple minded acquaintance, only for things to go horribly wrong. The young mans' mother (Fran Franklin) then turns to them at the funeral and utters a cryptic warning, which seems to be coming true.

Next, we're told of characters who lived at the turn of the century who discovered a mysterious, misty hole in the earth. The father (Robert Holton) of a boy whose dog disappeared ventures inside the hole; we never find out just what he might have seen, but he comes out a very traumatized individual. Could the hole have been a passageway to Hell itself? Maybe.

Finally, a travelling senator (Michael Harvey) and his wife encounter a strange girl (Rosie Holotik) who asks to be driven home. In flashback we learn that she'd wanted nothing more than to marry the man she loved, but her father (Gene Ross) believed him to be good for nothing and forbade her from marrying him. The senator meets the now aged father who has a revelation in store for him.

The hardcore exploitation / horror buff will be pleased to note the presence of S.F. Brownrigg regulars like Ross and Annabelle Weenick, as well as other familiar faces like the lovely Holotik ("Horror High"), Bill Thurman ("The Last Picture Show"), James N. Harrell ("Race with the Devil"), and comedian Charlie Dell while watching. They help to make this an entertaining view, although the movie falters a little during its final tale as it starts to drag too much. Still, as mentioned in the summary, this does have some genuine curiosity value going for it. Serling as always does an extremely engaging job of posing provocative questions that may not have easy answers. Overall genre fans may find it to their liking.

Seven out of 10.

I first saw this film on TV in 1978. I only watched the middle story, however before we switched channels to watch "And Now the Screaming Starts" instead. I was only 7 years old, but the story and images stuck with me all these years. I caught a glimpse of the second story again (the hole in the earth tale) in 1980 in L.A.'s Greyhound Bus Terminal on a pay-per-view TV in the waiting areas. Ever since 1997 nobody on the many horror movie Internet forums could identify this film for me! Finally in 2004 I went to the microfilms at the local library to look up that date in 1980 in the TV listings and that is where the title Encounter With the Unknown came be...well, known (or re-known to me). Not soon after, I won the one-sheet poster on Ebay. On March 30th, 2007, I finally scored A DVD R of this (in great condition) from Retroflicks.com. The film - in all its grainy filmstock, unprofessional acting, Afterschool Special soundtrack music glory...all make for ONE CREEPY VIEWING!!!! Films that are too slick (the ones made today) lack the punch these older films have. In fact, during the first tale, I was afraid to watch this film alone in my apartment. So I watched TVland reruns until I had to wait until my roommate came home before I resumed. As a veteran of watching a darn-near lifetime of horror movies, that's saying a lot! What can be considered production "short-comings" to mainstream movie viewers actually WORKS in this films favor! I bought the whole experience and I, indeed, refuse to watch this one alone. The documentary feel is a hoot to watch. In fact, if this film was digitally cleaned and remastered it might lose some of its effect. Still, I'm glad I'm reunited with an old favorite that has lost none of its appeal all these years. It's exactly as I remembered it.

If you're familiar with the Twilight Zone series, it was an anthology of horror and sci-fi stories. Sticking with the horror motif, this movie takes three stories: a traumatic mother's prophecies, a hole in the ground and the traditional story of the ghostly hitchiker, and tries to scare us by claiming they're true. While there are numerous hitchhiker stores out there, Resurrection Mary the most famous, the movie actually makes a slight impact on the atmosphere level, but it is a bit lacking in its suspense factor. The production as well as some of the musical score is a little off-kilter, but the actors do put a fair effort in telling the stories and relating them to the viewer. It's great entertainment for horror fans opposed to the sensationalism of the blood-and-gore pics, but it's just not as scary as it tries to be..

While rather cheap-looking and poorly acted, the three stories presented in Encounter With the Unknown can be somewhat frightening considering that they are purportedly true. The first story seems rather incredible and the third may be recognized as a well-known "urban legend", but the intervening story is somehow very believable and easily the most disturbing of the three. This movie is well worth seeing if only for the second story concerning the strange hole which appears in the ground after a heavy rainfall.

Hey .. About this movie i mostly like the first story about the cursed kids in billiards... But the most importantly , I'm really proud of myself and all you people reading this , meaning we that care much about movies that spend dollars to find these old and unique movies and watch em so carefully that come to check out what others think bout em ...!! We dont let the film maker's efforts just be for nothing... Thank you all ... I also should thank the producers of this movie and all alikes for spending time , energy and money to at least try to make something ( Movie ) with low and the loss of equipments at that time like 50 years ago for the 1970's fans and us in 2021 and so on .... Who knows ?? Maybe somebody in 2071 comes reading my Comment and thanks me for my ideas in my time... Lol ..... Ok , let's wait and see...

Encounter with the Unknown is an anthology of supernatural stories revolving around events which are purported to have actually happened. We have Rod Serling's testimony to that fact, which in the mid-1970's was good enough.

It's Night Gallery meets Legend of Boggy Creek. When Encounter with the Unknown really ramps-up it isn't half bad. But when it's bad, it's really frickin' awful. You fans of bad cinema will eat it up. All of your favorite low-budget elements are here; terrible acting, abysmal dialog, amateurish sound and dubbing, grubby set design and costuming, and best of all, the master of ceremonies, Serling, "phoning it in" as only he could do at the very end of his tenure.

The stories are not really bad at all. This film, had it had the budget it needed would be have been a classic. But it wasn't and so now it struggles to keep the chills coming and laughs to a minimum.

After so many years of being a horror fanatic, I still don't understand why certain dull movies enjoy a so-called classic status, whereas other fine and effectively scary ones are doomed to remain stuck in oblivion! Take "Encounter with the Unknown", for instance. I had never heard of it before, and that usually means it's not worth discovering, but surprisingly enough this turned out to be a really neat and atmospheric anthology film, with 3 simply yet genuinely unsettling short tales, all revolving around the supernatural.

In the first tale, an obviously terrified young man confesses to a priest on a plane how a silly prank, played by himself and two of his friends, resulted in the accidental death of a neighborhood kid. During the funeral, however, the mother spoke out a sort of curse, and now the boy is persuaded that the three of them will die in freak-accidents. One by land and two by sky, once every seven days. The second story is set in a sleepy little town in Missouri, where a young boy discovers a giant hole in the ground whilst looking for his runaway dog. Ominous sounds and fog emerge from the hole, and pretty soon the entire village gathers around the mysterious place. The father of the boy, who still fears that his dog fell into the hole, finally decides to lower himself into it, but the consequences are tragic. The third and final tale is a famous urban legend known as "The Girl on the Bridge". In the middle of the night, a couple stops at a bridge to pick up a beautiful but clearly confused girl. She requests to be taken home, and even gives the address, but her grieving father already knows what happens next. The girl mysteriously disappears from the backseat again, because she tragically died in a car accident many, many years ago already, when she and her forbidden boyfriend ran off together to get married.

Admittedly, "Encounter with the Unknown" is a very cheap and low-keyed production, and none of the stories contain any spectacular stunts or bloody make-up effects. This isn't the least bothersome, though, because the film thrives entirely on macabre ambiance, intriguing stories, and basic but petrifying locations & set-pieces. This gem is literally chock-full of haunting and nightmarish images, like the old cemetery in the first story, the damping hole in the second and the meandering girl in the third. Oh yeah, and there's another thing that makes "Encounter with the Unknown" unique, and it's perhaps its sole link with stardom. The individual tales are introduced and wrapped up by the warm, absorbing and mystical voice of none other than Rod Serling. All to obviously, this was done to generate a sort of "Twilight Zone" effect, but who cares? In fact, I was all set to reward "Encounter of the Unknown" with a glorious score of eight, or even nine out of ten, but the last 10 minutes nearly ruined everything. For some inexplicable reason, a different narrator finds it necessary so reanalyze the three stories in detail and convince the audience that supernatural powers are all around us. The highlights of the films are repeated again, the curse of the grieving mother even three or four times, and the eerie impact of the overall film almost vanishes completely. If you ever come across this obscure puppy, I recommend it wholeheartedly, but my advice is to press "stop" immediately after the end of the third segment.

I love these old gems from the past! No computer special effects or anything fancy, just simple, creepy tales done in sort of a 70's documentary style. This fits in with other classics like "Legend Of Bogey Creek". The great Rod Serling narrates three weird tales of the supernatural. Making it even spookier is that the stories told are supposedly based on real life accounts. Fact or not, I'm into this sort of thing so this was right up my alley! TV can't make creepy shows like this anymore. The old style grainy picture creates a real mood with these old shows, something that isn't captured with the new digital. This is the type of show the would air late at night that would scare the life out of me growing up! If you're nostalgic, and enjoy classic horror from the past, I definitely recommend trying to find this on VHS, you will enjoy it!

Encounter with the Unknown (1972)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Rod Serling narrates three tales that deal with the unknown. The first story has three friends playing a prank on a nerdy guy, which ends up getting him killed. At the funeral the dead boy's mother tells the three something that leads to their fate. In the second story, a farm boy and his father discover a mysterious opening in the woods. In the final story, a man is driving across a bridge when he spots a young woman and picks her up. She requests to go to her father's house.

I'm going to avoid spoiling anything in regards to the three stories. With that said, ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNKNOWN is a film that is obviously working with a very low-budget. The film reminded me a lot of THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK and it works in the same way that one did. Both films pretty much had no budgets but this worked to their advantage because it created a real atmosphere. This film here has some rather interesting moments but also some very bad ones.

As far as the three stories go, there's no question that the second one is the best. I thought this one here managed to have the best atmosphere and it's easy to see how this story could scare a lot of the young kids who watched it at the drive-in back in 1972. The first story is without question the weakest because it's incredibly easy to figure out what's going to happen. The third and final story is predictable but I thought it played out in an interesting way.

I'd argue that the "closing speech" made at the end of the three stories wasn't needed and in fact the film would have been much better without it. The performances are mixed throughout the three stories but Serling's narration is quite good throughout. Overall, ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNKNOWN isn't the perfect movie but there's enough here to make it worth watching.