Unidentified Flying Objects prove themselves to be the ultimate FOES in this obscure tale of alien terror on Blu-ray from Garagehouse Pictures.

A flying saucer vaporizes a military jet upon impact off the coast of California. Airforce General Mason (THE X-FILES' Jerry Hardin) summons civilian consultant Professor McCarey (DAYS OF OUR LIVES' Macdonald Carey) to get to California and investigate. Radar has tracked the foreign vessel to an island near Santa Barbara inhabited only by lighthouse keeper Larry (director John Coats) and his wife Diana (Jane Wiley), but they cannot be reached because of interference from the craft in the form of a ten mile diameter, three thousand foot high force field that also causes a rescue helicopter to fall out of the sky. Before they can send word to the Coast Guard to keep others away from the island, skin divers Paul and Vic (Alan Blanchard and Gregory Clemens, who had both also appeared in SLITHIS) had already left and docked on the island. While the divers are underwater and unaware they are trapped, Larry becomes fascinated with the object despite his surmising that it is probably giving off radiation and Diane's increasing terror and conviction that whatever is in the craft does not plan to let them go. The military instruments pick up a large explosion over the island and assume everyone is dead until high altitude reconnaissance photographs reveal that there are survivors. Cut off from the mainland, the survivors attempt an escape from the increasingly deadly alien force.

Not widely seen and possibly never released theatrically in the United States – IMDb lists an American TV company and overseas theatrical distributors – FOES is a true 1970s sci-fi oddity. On the one hand, the film seems almost an outgrowth of other 1970s fictionalized "non-fiction" books and films spawned by the era's UFO craze with its low-key almost documentary approach to characterization and exposition through academic and military sources; on the other, it boasts some incredibly ambitious and accomplished visual effects – designed by Coats himself and future Industrial Lights and Magic tech Scott Farrar and composited by Hollywood process photography innovator Bill Hansard's company – and a hybrid orchestral/electronic score that melds with the sound design and creates a more palpable sense of dread than the actors can project long before the ship's beings makes themselves seen. The clash between the overwritten military scenes and the thin characterizations of the island characters, along with introduction of a supposed crack UFO investigator (Steven Schrader) in the last fifteen minutes makes a pretty uninvolving viewing experience for long stretches but it is interesting as a visual effects showcase around the same time that other future Hollywood visual effects artists were working for hire on other low budget genre works.

Unreleased on home video in the United States – the film definitely had a 1978 UK theatrical release but no video release there either – FOES comes to 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray looking virtually unblemished with a marked contrast between the Super 16mm live action photography and additional 35mm scenes and effects shots. Colors are brilliant in the bright exterior scenes while natural light interiors look softer and grainier, and the underlit night scenes probably looked no better on the theater screen. The DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0 mono soundtrack is also quite impressive in delivering the scoring and sound design which rival higher budget genre product of the period. There are no subtitles or captioning options.

The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by Coats who reveals that the scenes featuring Carey were added at the insistence of the distributors to provide explanation and to bring the film up to ninety minutes. He recalls that these scenes were scripted by the distributors and that the role was originally offered to Orson Welles with an earlier version of the script that he shot down in a brutal fashion that Coats and his producers were able to overhear from their office across the hall before Welles' East Coast agent called and offered a kinder rejection. He also reveals that the film originally was originally told in flashback and that this structure was not the only element effected by the insertion of the military scenes which threw off the pacing and the action (the lighthouse keeper and his wife were originally drawn outside to catch sight of the craft by the explosion caused by the collision with the jet but the introductory scenes of Carey placed after the opening meant that they had to react to something else). He also goes into detail about the visual effects which were achieved through front projection with the UFO static and the screen moved instead, capturing the film and the effects elements in Super 16mm and the projection material in 35mm so that the grain would be finer when re-photographed. Some of the shots in the film came from footage shot by Leerjet and some other bits came from footage Coats shot a year before production to show investors how the effects would be achieved.