Dark Skies (2013) | USA, 95 minutes, Rated 14A (ON) 13+ (QC) | Reviewed 02/13, © Stephen Bourne, Ottawa, Canada
Keri Russell stars as struggling California realtor Lacy Barrett who quickly discovers her quiet Franklin County suburban home and family have become the target of inexplicably bizarre occurrences that her youngest son Sam (played by Kadan Rockett) blames on a night visitor he calls The Sandman - one of three shadowy extraterrestrials haunting them - in this poorly written and easily forgettable alien abduction stinker from writer/director Scott Stewart. It co-stars Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, and L.J. Benet, as Lacy's laid off architect husband Dan, their 13 year-old eldest boy Jesse, and Jesse's delinquent bud Kevin respectively.
Despite what moviegoers might hope for going in, Dark Skies isn't a particularly good ghost story where Stewart's paper-thin screenplay replaces ghosts with extraterrestrials. Clever idea. Badly realized. All you see for the most part is the psychological unravelling of this dull family as their awareness of what's happening to them clarifies with (for them) terrifying results. Remember M. Night Shyamalan's tragically lame 2002 alien invasion movie Signs? Yeah, this one's an even weaker cousin of that one: All suspense, no scares. None. Even the few glimpses of the film's tall and skinny, sausage-headed aliens feel anti-climactic. Just like the cliché ending. Awful.
J.K. Simmons is the only highlight here, making a couple of brief, stoic appearances as a kind of David Jacobs/Budd Hopkins-like alien abduction expert named Edwin Pollard, lending explanations and warnings to the Barretts later on. When Dan finally starts to believe and asks, "What's so special about us?" Pollard replies, "Nothing," telling Dan and Lacy they're little more than lab rats to those malevolent E.T.s. However, unlike Communion (1989) or Fire In The Sky (1993), this feature neither claims nor attempts to specifically reenact what self-professed alien abductees have insisted actually happened to them. I can't imagine anyone who takes ufology or any aspect of it seriously being particularly satisfied with this movie.
Along with being a boring and utterly pointless flick from beginning to closing credits, the most aggravating aspect of Dark Skies is how often what's presented makes no real sense. For instance, after being told of physical evidence resembling abuse experienced by their sons, Lacy and Dan being the desperately concerned parents they are react by worrying about what friends and the authorities think. We never see them tend to Sam's and Jesse's injuries. This kind of ridiculousness happens time and again, mainly during the times when the Barretts aren't summarily reduced to twitching, slack-jawed meat puppets momentarily tormented by alien mind control. At least some of those scenes are so cheesy they're funny.
Online, the movie's stylishly useless web page at www.darkskiesfilm.com merely presents you with basic links to its vaguely updated Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr pages. The only bright point is the film's separate www.youhavebeenchosen.org site, where Facebook users have the chance to see their personal info and photos creatively incorporated into an eerie infographic gallery of alien abduction data. Officially, there's no synopsis or cast line-up to be found, except at Blumhouse Productions' own site which nobody bothered to link to. Sloppy. Just like the movie, sadly.
The premise is promising, but Dark Skies is so forgettably disappointing that it's hardly worth the price of admission for fans of alien invasion movies or of flicks that go bump in the night. Dark Skies, Dull Grays. Reviewed 02/13, © Stephen Bourne.
Keri Russell stars as struggling California realtor Lacy Barrett who quickly discovers her quiet Franklin County suburban home and family have become the target of inexplicably bizarre occurrences that her youngest son Sam (played by Kadan Rockett) blames on a night visitor he calls The Sandman - one of three shadowy extraterrestrials haunting them - in this poorly written and easily forgettable alien abduction stinker from writer/director Scott Stewart. It co-stars Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, and L.J. Benet, as Lacy's laid off architect husband Dan, their 13 year-old eldest boy Jesse, and Jesse's delinquent bud Kevin respectively.
Despite what moviegoers might hope for going in, Dark Skies isn't a particularly good ghost story where Stewart's paper-thin screenplay replaces ghosts with extraterrestrials. Clever idea. Badly realized. All you see for the most part is the psychological unravelling of this dull family as their awareness of what's happening to them clarifies with (for them) terrifying results. Remember M. Night Shyamalan's tragically lame 2002 alien invasion movie Signs? Yeah, this one's an even weaker cousin of that one: All suspense, no scares. None. Even the few glimpses of the film's tall and skinny, sausage-headed aliens feel anti-climactic. Just like the cliché ending. Awful.
J.K. Simmons is the only highlight here, making a couple of brief, stoic appearances as a kind of David Jacobs/Budd Hopkins-like alien abduction expert named Edwin Pollard, lending explanations and warnings to the Barretts later on. When Dan finally starts to believe and asks, "What's so special about us?" Pollard replies, "Nothing," telling Dan and Lacy they're little more than lab rats to those malevolent E.T.s. However, unlike Communion (1989) or Fire In The Sky (1993), this feature neither claims nor attempts to specifically reenact what self-professed alien abductees have insisted actually happened to them. I can't imagine anyone who takes ufology or any aspect of it seriously being particularly satisfied with this movie.
Along with being a boring and utterly pointless flick from beginning to closing credits, the most aggravating aspect of Dark Skies is how often what's presented makes no real sense. For instance, after being told of physical evidence resembling abuse experienced by their sons, Lacy and Dan being the desperately concerned parents they are react by worrying about what friends and the authorities think. We never see them tend to Sam's and Jesse's injuries. This kind of ridiculousness happens time and again, mainly during the times when the Barretts aren't summarily reduced to twitching, slack-jawed meat puppets momentarily tormented by alien mind control. At least some of those scenes are so cheesy they're funny.
Online, the movie's stylishly useless web page at www.darkskiesfilm.com merely presents you with basic links to its vaguely updated Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr pages. The only bright point is the film's separate www.youhavebeenchosen.org site, where Facebook users have the chance to see their personal info and photos creatively incorporated into an eerie infographic gallery of alien abduction data. Officially, there's no synopsis or cast line-up to be found, except at Blumhouse Productions' own site which nobody bothered to link to. Sloppy. Just like the movie, sadly.
The premise is promising, but Dark Skies is so forgettably disappointing that it's hardly worth the price of admission for fans of alien invasion movies or of flicks that go bump in the night. Dark Skies, Dull Grays. Reviewed 02/13, © Stephen Bourne.