Movie: Dark Skies
By: Maniac E
Date: March 21, 2013
Director Scott Stewart teams with Paranormal Activity franchise originator Blumhouse Productions on an alien-abduction suspenser for a horror/thriller/sci-fi movie. While Scott Stewart is known for his more visually active movies, he turns things around this time.
The film stars Kerri Russell and Josh Hamilton as parents of two kids (Dakota Goyo, Kadan Rockett) who are dealing with the usual suburban family problems when they begin to experience strange events that could be the work of extraterrestrial forces. Of course, it' s the children that have the most direct contact with the otherworldly beings and come to harm as a result. To his credit, Stewart broaches on interesting themes and social conflicts, like innocent parents being suspected of abusing their children, but anything even remotely interesting is dragged down by the languid pace and overuse of cliches. How many more times do I have to see a stoic youngster draw a crude crayon drawing of their spooky invisible friend?
Thank god! Yes, this is not another found footage film finally they ended up with totally different product. So I continue on with the movie just to find out it completely develops the same way as "Paranormal Activity".... This is really a letdown. I didn' t expect much of the movie but I was hoping for something different, something less safe. In the end it is just well a bit of a bore-fest. There is even one scene where they want to capture the aliens on video and so webcams got installed... I wonder where we did see that before. I am never quite sure which way Stewart wanted to go with this movie on both horror and sci-fi ground it misses too much. I love both genres so if they make movie that combines it all, I am the first one to applaud that. In this case the movie lacks and shows that it isn' t really creative at all.
Slow as it may be, the film shows some flashes of subtlety. While Stewart has a long background in visual effects he keeps them to a minimum here, taking the Jaws approach and understands that sometimes less is more. The film does occasionally take a heavier-handed approach to scares, such as scenes where small birds suicide bomb the family' s home and Russell gets put into a trance and bashes her head against a sliding glass door (which comes across as absurd more than frightening), but sometimes you have to appreciate convention being bent when it' s not being broken. Although cinematographer David Boyd' s visuals are solid throughout and composer Joseph Bishara' s unnerving score supports the action without overwhelming it.
It ended up being a letdown for me and it started off promising but instead of that we get more of the same only without the shaky cams. For me it was missing both the suspense and or real horror elements to make it feel unearthly or real creepy. Some of the scenes just made me laugh because they were so absurd. This one can go back into space and not return, on this planet no-one will believe.
Dark Skies
Scott Stewart
USA
2013
Keri Russell, Jake Brennan, Josh Hamilton
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