Awesome Music: You may or may not like the film, but you'd be hard-pressed to deny the main theme, by none other than Eric Clapton, is beautiful.
Cult Classic: Very popular among some circles for Christopher Walken's magnificently weird performance, its surrealism, and some legitimately terrifying moments.
Ham and Cheese: The film is legendary for Christopher Walken's hammy performance. He gleefully chews the scenery as Streiber, who starts out as eccentric at best and goes nuttier from there.
Streber glances at a cabinet, and sees one of the Visitors peering out from behind it. It's very creepy.
All of Whitley's abductions are terrifying for how dream-like and surreal they are.
So Bad, It's Good: It's not regarded as a great film, but still has an audience for Christopher Walken's performance, ample amounts of Narm, and just how weird it is. The fact it has some legitimately creepy moments helps.
Special Effects Failure: The aliens themselves. They're obviously puppets, but clever directorial tricks and the obvious fairness of the aliens make them extremely creepy.
The Woobie: Whitley. As weird as he is, it's hard not to feel sorry for him. He's a friendly, loving father struggling with PTSD from the aliens, and his experiences have left him clearly mentally ill.
The musician
Everyone Is Satan in Hell: In his confession, Alvaro Vega criticised secular pop and rap music as evil and demonic, claiming that "all that music does is glorify SIN, even the seemingly harmless secular music is a dangerous tool of Satan." Though it quite ironic that he still names Eminem as an influence despite the latter's profane, transgressive music.note It can be noted however that Eminem is a practising Christian and has made at least one faith-based song in his career.
