The Lowdown:Don’t let the ads fool you! Dark Skiesmay look like a horror film, but it’s actually a watered-down, uninspired dreck of a supernatural thriller, combining elements from Insidious, Paranormal Activity, and any film involving UFOs. Yet, even though the film rips off so much material from other sources, there is a distinct lack of scares and tension in this film. The film also provides a generous load of “WTF”, as characters do things that are hilariously out of character and nonsensical to boot. Oh, and the kicker? It’s PG-13. That pretty much sums it up.
1. The Plot: So the film begins by giving us a tour of a happy, normal neighborhood and getting us to know the Barrett family, comprised of Lacy (Keri Russell), Daniel (Josh Hamilton), Jesse (Dakota Goyo), and Sam (Kadan Rockett). Lacy and Daniel have been stressed out because of financial worries; Daniel is unemployed and Lacy, as a real estate agent, is finding that business is slow in the housing market. In the meantime, Jesse, the oldest son, has been hanging out with some weird white kid who is older and acts like some kind of wannabe gangsta. For instance, the kid sags his pants and spews out classic lines like “You gotta go downtown! That’s how I do it with all my ladies!” Role model of the year, ladies and gentlemen. Anyways, turns out that weird stuff is happening as of late (isn’t it always?). Lacy has been waking up every night to discover creepy things. One night, she wakes up to find that the fridge has been raided and (gasp!) all the lettuce has been eaten! What a dilemma! Another night, she discovers that someone, or something, has taken all the items out of the pantry and stacked them up to make towers. Obviously, someone wasn’t listening when they were told to not play with their food. The house alarms also go off inexplicably in the night, but there is no sign of an intruder. Also, Sam, the youngest child, has been having nightmares about “The Sandman”. Sam keeps acting stranger and stranger as the days pass. He sleepwalks at night, wets his pants, freezes up as if possessed, and conveniently has lapses in memory. Then the same thing begins to happen to the other members of the family, and they begin to freak out.
In some cases, hilariously.
After a bit of research online, Lacy discovers that all the weird stuff that’s happening may be the cause of…(spoiler alert)…aliens. I’m not kidding, but feel free to giggle. Anyways, she tracks down an “expert” in extraterrestrials named Edwin Pollard (J.K. Simmons totally phoning it in), who informs her and Daniel that “The Greys" want to abduct someone in the family. The family then begins to board up the house and prepare for an invasion.2. The Characters: a) Cardboard: If you thought the plot described above was clichéd, then you ain’t heard nothing yet. The characters in the film are about as stock as you can get. As a “normal” family, there is nothing about the Barretts that stands out in any way. They just act like a normal family, with OK performances all around. That is, until everyone begins to say and do things that are totally out of character.
b) Stuff that Makes No Sense: Speaking of which, in one sequence, the house alarm goes off in the middle of the night, but otherwise, nothing seems to have happened. Then the family realizes that all of the pictures in the frames in the living room have disappeared. After inspecting the house, the cops speculate that one of the kids did it. Sam had been acting strange by this point, after all. So what does Daniel, the father, do? In a sudden fit of rage, he begins ransacking Sam’s room, searching every nook and cranny furiously for the missing pictures. Why is he so outrageously angry all of a sudden? The film seems to imply that he’s frustrated because he is unemployed and therefore can’t afford therapy for Sam, but searching Sam’s room makes no sense and feels completely out of place. He actually believed the stupid, inept cop’s half-hearted hypothesis? Who said that Sam needed therapy? And what exactly is tearing apart Sam’s room going to accomplish? Oh, and in another sequence, Lacy and Daniel are so paranoid that they go to visit J.K. Simmons’ character, the alien expert. Speaking of J.K. Simmons, his character is basically Dr. Exposition. Too bad the exposition is mostly ridiculous (the only way to prevent the abduction is “to try as hard as possible to stop the aliens”???) or just a repeat of things we already know. The first thing J.K. Simmons does is give Lacy and Daniel a “diagnostic test” consisting of super-specific questions that (duh!) happen to be the precise things that happened to our characters earlier in the film. Here are some examples: “Have either of you experienced any blackouts? Stretches of time that you can’t account for? Have you experienced the feeling that you might not be in control of your own body?” Wow. Either J.K. Simmons is a psychic, or he watched the first hour of the film with us before he stepped into the frame to phone in his lines. What makes all of the above hilarious is the super serious performances by the actors, combined with a super serious tone and ominous music. The fact that our characters are taking all of this hokey alien stuff so seriously is utterly preposterous and giggle-inducing. When Lacy researches the information about “The Greys” on the internet, she acts so concerned and shocked by what she finds, despite the fact that the sites she finds are sketchy and cheesy-looking. Any normal person looking up this stuff would probably roll their eyes and then go back to watching better stuff on YouTube. Oh, and I can’t forget to mention the scene immediately after Lacy and Daniel have spoken to J.K. Simmons. They’ve accepted every word of J.K. Simmons as the truth, and immediately begin to prepare for the aliens like the apocalypse is upon them. They buy a gun, although I’m pretty sure one needs a license to do that. They also buy a ferocious attack dog, but they never train it! I’m pretty sure that in reality, the dog would have torn the two kids apart when the parents brought it home. Really, it’s just too funny how serious the parents are taking this. Oh, and the best part about all this shit? They don’t bother to tell the kids what’s going on, even though it is the kids’ lives that are in danger.
3. The Utter Lack of Scares: For a movie that so extensively promoted itself as an intense supernatural thriller, there is hardly a scary moment in the film. In fact, there might only be one sort-of-freaky moment, which is our first glimpse of an alien, but it still qualifies as a cheap jump scare. I prefer slow-burning scary moments because they ramp up the tension. Sadly, this film has exactly zero slow-burning moments and exactly zero tension. Pretty much every “scare” is a jump scare, and they get boring really fast.
Oh wow. Eek. I'm scared or whatever.
Also, the pacing is poor. Long stretches of the film go by without anything even remotely disturbing happening. That is, until the climax, which is a non-stop barrage of crappy jump scares (i.e. doors slam shut, people scream, bright lights flash, and loud noises happen). Obviously, the filmmakers consulted the Little Book of Horror Movie Clichés™ but overlooked the fact that clichés are not scary. I realize that a PG-13 rating requires some toning down, but that doesn’t mean that the film has to be utterly bereft of scares.4. The Dreaded Sequel Hook: The most disappointing films tend to be ones that are so confident of themselves that they set up a sequel before seeing how the first one will turn out. Dark Skies fits nicely into this category. Another example I can think of is Dragonball Evolution (2009), but that film is far more horrifying than this one. But I digress. It is pretty much a rule now that every American horror film must have a twist ending. One would have to have never seen a horror film to not expect a twist at the end of Dark Skies. However, the ending of Dark Skiescompounds an exceptionally lousy twist with a half-assed set up for a sequel. It’s like the filmmakers decided that the only way to excite people for a “Dark Skies 2” would be to leave a cliffhanger. Too bad the cliffhanger here was obviously tacked on at the last minute, and the rest of the film didn’t excite enough for a second film anyways. You know, the thought of a “Dark Skies 2” might even be more horrifying than Dragonball Evolution.
What's that over there? A better movie? Quick, get me outta here!!!
The Bottom Line: Dark Skies is yet another pitiful, sanitized, hackneyed piece of PG-13 horror crap. It gleefully rips off elements from countless other (better) horror films, but forgets to spice those elements up to deliver something fresh. The result is a clichéd, boring mess of a film that lacks any intrigue or tension. The film is also far too serious for its own good; the characters in the film take the nonsensical “alien” theory so seriously that it becomes laughable. It would have been better if the filmmakers had more fun with the material and made a horror-comedy instead of an unintentional comedy with horror elements. The end result is also a frustrating disappointment, giving us a crappy cliffhanger that sets up a sequel that we don’t want. The bottom line: Dark Skies blows. I honestly hope that there won’t be a “Dark Skies 2”.Dark Skiesis property of Alliance Films and Blumhouse Productions. This review was written by me.
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