Cast: Keri Russell, Jake Brennan, Josh Hamilton
Director: Scott Stewart
Country: USA
Genre: Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller
Official Trailer: Here
Editor’s Note: Dark Skies opens today, February 22nd
When was the super powerful malevolent force in a horror movie officially downgraded to a cruel prankster? It seems the new trend when you introduce an all powerful antagonist into the story—whether it be ghost, demon or indeed alien—the devious beast becomes preoccupied with committing mean-spirited jokes on the helpless characters, rather than simply doing whatever evil thing it came to do. Since a horror film is usually driven by the depraved acts of its villain, scary movies that boast villains with a child’s temperament usually don’t turn out very scary at all. Dark Skies can certainly fall into that category as these alien intruders prove they have a sense of humour about as mature as an eight year old.
It seems the new trend when you introduce an all powerful antagonist into the story—whether it be ghost, demon or indeed alien—the devious beast becomes preoccupied with committing mean-spirited jokes on the helpless characters, rather than simply doing whatever evil thing it came to do.
That’s not to say the aliens don’t have dubious intent: they certainly do. However, it’s stated explicitly that they have motivations beyond simple abduction and experimentation: they also want to torment you. How do they torment you? I would preface the next sentence with a spoiler alert, but the film’s trailer already divulged every memorable moment in the film, so there’s nothing really left to spoil. The aliens really enjoy leaving doors open, despite the fact they don’t need to use them. They also spend their time elaborately stacking items in the kitchen into towers of product placement, and on summer days they enjoy stealing family photos out of their frames. They often implant people with devices that allow them to inject hallucinations into the subjects’ consciousness, which is a plot device used to aggravating effect. Was that real? Wasn’t that real? Oh, good, I’m glad that happened ’cause I was starting to get bored… Oh wait, it actually wasn’t real.
There were a few effective jolts in the film, but they alone are not worth the price of admission. Dark Skies takes the basic haunted house structure, using a lot of gags from classics like Poltergeistand The Amityville Horror, and applies them to an alien abduction movie. The difference is that those films establish the character of the ghosts and demons as struggling supernatural forces hungry for destruction. The key word there is “struggling”, which serves as the explanation why there are bumps in the night. In the original Paranormal Activity, one gets the sense that the force is gaining power and threatens to do something terrible to the character of Katie. It doesn’t move furniture around in the night ’cause it thinks it’s funny or because it’s trying to scare them. The eerie strangeness isn’t the focus; it’s just a byproduct of the force’s true horrifying goal.
There’s nothing scary about a force whose main motivation is to scare you. If that were the case, then people would be scared of the production of horror films, rather than the horror films themselves.
There’s nothing scary about a force whose main motivation is to scare you. If that were the case, then people would be scared of the production of horror films, rather than the horror films themselves. It’s fun to run up behind someone and yell “Boo!” Scaring people isn’t an evil impulse at all: it’s an entertaining one. As the film progresses, an image of a bunch of aliens gathered around a monitor, chuckling to themselves as they watch the baffled family confused and disturbed by their antics, slowly works its way into your mind. The result is a certain level of unwanted laughter from the audience at the absurdity on screen. But then again, perhaps it’s better to get laughs than nothing at all.
[notification type=”star”]30/100 ~ AWFUL. There were a few effective jolts in the film, but they alone are not worth the price of admission. Dark Skies takes the basic haunted house structure, using a lot of gags from classics like Poltergeistand The Amityville Horror, and applies them to an alien abduction movie.[/notification]
