10 Sci-Fi Movie Rip-Offs You Won't Believe Exist

Making Contact (aka Joey) is an especially unhinged rip-off given that it collides two tonally disparate hit movies - E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Poltergeist - into one fascinatingly uneven hodgepodge.

Directed by Roland Emmerich years before he became Hollywood's go-to guy for destruction porn, Making Contact follows nine-year-old Joey (Joshua Morell), who makes contact with what he believes is his late father, while being terrorised by a demoncially possessed ventriloquist dummy called Fletcher.

Joey then develops telekinetic powers and ventures into the spirit world in order to do battle with the evil forces threatening him and his family. Yup.

Steven Spielberg's influence looms large over this film, which is best characterised as an intriguing failure.

Emmerich certainly tries to tie it all together, but the script is such a tonally unwieldy mess of ideas and moods that it lacks the consistency you'd expect in an actual Spielberg joint.

The acting is also... not good, to be kind, yet there's just enough enticing style and honest-to-God atmosphere here to make Making Contact a memorable curio.