kai ringler this one sorta reminds you of the hills have eyes.. Harry Hamlin stars in this as the dad,, his wife has passed and he has a new wife whom the kids are struggling to accept,,they are on vacation, and decide to take a detour off of the main road,, they come across and old mining town that was used to detonate the neutron bomb back in 1948. there are people there who are deformed from the blast and have been inbred.. the animals are weird looking too,, the sand in the desert got fried, and turned into glass for a few hundred feet. you never really see the creatures or people till the very end,, this was a pretty decent TV movie i thought, very unique in a way,, not over the top or anything, but still nonetheless very entertaining.

englishman_in_bratislava With disregard to the major flaws of this film - the one shining light is it's plot. The ending and the rather large list of unanswered questions leave the final scenes of the film totally to the imagination, and subsequently, gets far more appreciation from me - for getting me to think, and for creating a deal of hype surrounding what was going on.I do believe the neutron bomb happened in '48 and that the town of Weaver, possibly even the neighboring town was vaporized in the blast.Some strong symbolism and the "sign" that is tattooed/painted to the skin on the wall, as well as strategic car parking at the ravine, lead me to believe the ramblings of Lester that Weaver could indeed have been built on an old Indian burial ground. I have a feeling that whatever normality was in place prior to the neutron bomb, it was clearly affected the miners hiding out underneath Weaver.I agree with other posters who have thought similar ideas about the old man "nice car" and the daughter "nice bike". We're lead to believe that the old man has swapped bodies with the young girl in some kind of periodic regeneration of either a) Indians or b) mutants from the bomb site. Fresh graves indicate that once regenerated, the instigators require to hide the evidence to avoid suspicion...Although that would seem a moot point, considering the sheriff is either one of them, or working within his powers to co-operate and appease them. If the "regular" people of the neighboring town are aware of what is going on, then clearly the are co-conspirators like the sheriff, or just the incumbents themselves.The sand cloud remained a puzzle for me for a while, as it almost became sentient by the end of the film, chasing Henley's group first to the town then into the desert, maybe it is part of the transition process, or just something spiritual, awoken by the neutron bomb? The good thing about the ending is that it left either option open - and allows the viewer to come to their own conclusion what is really going on in the town. My personal take is that the bomb or the miners' attempts to hide from it, resulted in them discovering more than they bargained for in the mine shafts. A spirit or tradition, that since allowed them to continue existence, despite being infected by radiation in the first instance after the explosion.Certainly the crow - lends to this notion, and that despite the "disappearance" of the family, the boy lives on in the crow at the end (taking pictures) while previously "obvious" personalities of the diner waitress/old man, are now living on in his physical family. Strange then, that the boy wasn't killed - but was moved into the crow. Apart from that i'm comfortable with this explanation.

Paul Andrews Disappearance is set in the Mojave desert as Jim (Harry Hamlin) & Patty Henley (Susan Dey) plus their two kids Katie (Basia A'Hern) & Matt (Jeremey Lelliott) along with Ethan (Jamie Croft) a friend of the family are travelling along, they stop at a roadside diner & ask about an old deserted mining town on the map called Weaver. No-one claims to have heard of it but it's definitely there & the family decide to take a detour in order to check it out & take some pictures. Once at the town they take some pictures & have a look around but when it comes time to leave their car won't start & they have to spend the night there. While looking around they find a camcorder videotape which they play only to discover footage of a scared woman saying all her friends have disappeared, the next morning & their car has disappeared as things take a very sinister turn. What is Weaver's secret? Will the Henley's ever leave there alive...Written, co-executive produced & directed by Walter Klenhard I have to say that Disappearance is one of the most frustrating films I have ever watched. For the first 85 minutes it was a pretty good mysterious mix of thriller & horror film but then we are treated to one of the single worst endings ever in motion picture history. The script suggest lots of different things but never elaborates or confirms & I was sitting there genuinely intrigued about what was going on, from the families car mysterious disappearing, the four recent graves, the thing in the abandoned mines, the supernatural sandstorm, the sudden & unexplained disappearance of Ethan & his just as unexplained reappearance, the Sheriff's sinister motives, the compass in the car going crazy, the crashed plane, the townspeople denying Weaver existed & the possible side effects of a neutron bomb being dropped near Weaver in the 40's but they are all tossed out of the window & for all we know could have been totally separate random events. Everything was coming along nicely & was set up for a big twist revelation but none was forthcoming & instead I was treated to the most ambiguous, strange, surreal & downright frustrating ending possible. If nothing else the ending contradicts much of what has gone before & leaves the viewer with more questions than answers. It's almost as if the makers had these great ideas but then didn't know what to do with them & just made the ending up on the spot. I just felt I put so much effort into watching the film which can be pretty slow at times without any sort of reward & in fact the ending felt more like a kick in the teeth or a good two finger salute!Director Klenhard does a reasonable job here, the old ghost town has a certain atmosphere & the large expansive desert locations give a good sense of isolation. It's well made but what were they thinking with that ending? Nothing fits, nothing makes sense & it's just a huge frustrating mess that after sitting through the thing for nearly an hour & a half leaves you confused & wanting to know more. Despite being a horror film there's no blood or gore although there are one or two creepy moments here & there. The film actually reminds of The Hills Have Eyes (2006) remake for large parts as that is what the film is set-up to be before a bizarre ending which does nothing to bring any closure to the film.Technically the film is good with high production values, good special effects, sets, locations & cinematography. Set in America but filmed in South Australia. The acting is fine from a decent cast.Disappearance is a really odd film, for a long time it shapes up to be a neat little horror mystery thriller but it never explains anything which happens & the truly surreal ending just throws up more questions than answers. I really can't see anyone making head nor tail of this, I really can't.

SantaNiclaus I liked the movie, and I kinda got the ending. The ending is supposed to leave us speculating on what happened but if you realized this is kind of a "Sci-fi Mystery" then you realized the ending suggests very close government involvement. The government performed the "neutron bomb tests", and therefore would be constantly watching the results. Such as "mutations". One thing I noticed was when the girl fed the bird, she also spoke to it, telling it that there were no more treats. She had run out. Well, if you noticed in the movie, the guy in the jail cell, told the father, Jim, that there were mutations both human and animal. These two movie facts leads to speculation that the descendant humans and animals could communicate with one another. Also, the mutants or the government couldn't just let the "witnesses" leave and tell everybody so, they consume them. They brain wash them. OR worse, the aliens as the jail cell guy referred to, replace them with their own entities in their bodies or clones of them. It leaves a LOT of room for VERY interesting speculation AND . . . A "Disappearance 2" Call me, write me, get in touch with me because I'd LOVE to help write in it or maybe even act in it!