Perhaps it is worthwhile to mention here the response to what serves essentially as the climax to Navidson's documentary. After all, the film does not provide an even remotely coherent synthesis of Navidson's fall. There is a still photograph of the window, a few hundred feet of flares dropping, hovering, shooting up into the void, and several pictures of Navidson reading/ burning the book. The rest is a jumble of audio clips recording Navidson's impressions as he begins to die from exposure. All of which comes down to one incredible fact: nearly six minutes of screen time is black.

In Rolling Stone (November 14, 1996, p. 124) columnist James Parshall remarked:

Horrific, true, but also amusing. Even to this day, I can't help smiling when I think about the audience squirming in their seats, squinting at that implacable screen, now and then glancing over at those luminous red exit signs in order to give their eyes a rest, while somewhere behind them a projector continues to spew out darkness.

Michael Medved was appalled. In his mind, six minutes of nothing spelled the end of cinema. He was so shocked, indignant, even incoherent, he failed to consider that The Navidson Record might have absolutely nothing to do with cinema. Stuart Deweltrop in Blind Spot (v.42, spring, 1995, p. 38) described it as "a wonderful fiasco—n'est-ce pas?" Kenneth Turan called it "a stunt." Janet Maslin, however, had a completely different reaction: "At last a picture with cojones!"

Nor did Navidson's ending escape the gang in the monkey house. Jay Leno quipped, "You know how they made The Navidson Record? Left the lens cap on. This really was a home movie." While Letterman scowled: "Think about it folks: no stars, no crew, no locations. Very inexpensive. A lot of studios are taking this idea very seriously ... Seriously." Whereupon the lights on the stage were turned off for several seconds. On Home Improvement , Tim Allen offered a one minute parody in the dark, mostly having to do with stubbed toes, broken dishware, and misdirected gropes.

"I have nothing left," Navidson says slowly into the microcassette recorder. "No more food. No more water. [Long pause] I have film but the flash is dead. I'm so cold. My feet hurt." Then (who knows how much later): "I'm no longer sitting on anything. The slab, whatever it was, is gone. I'm floating or falling or I don't know what." -

Meanwhile, a number of serious film aficionados began commenting on the quality of the audio. It is no great secret now that Tom Holman, California THX sound wizard, helped clean up the tapes and monitor all the transfers. Numerous articles appeared in Audio, Film, and FIX. Purportedly Vittorio Storaro even said: "With sound that bright who needs light?" It is hard to disagree. Even if some of Navidson's words are impossible to understand, there is still a haunting proximity when he speaks, as if he were no longer buried in black, his words tapering without echo, his dying almost too close to bear.