Movie Reviews

Those pesky aliens! That’s Dark Skies for you in three words. In this alien abduction thriller, Keri Russell plays a suburban soccer mom whose family gets harassed by nightly visits that scare the living shit out of them. And that’s even before the really weird things start happening. Well, I guess they’re only really weird if you’ve never seen Signs. Or Paranormal Activity. Or The Fourth Kind. Or The X-Files. How cool would it be if one of the characters would go right from the start… fuck, it’s aliens! I’ve seen this in Signs! Instead we get J.K. Simmons as an alien abduction expert who takes the family by the hand and walks them through every strange occurrence.

Director Scott Stewart previously made the angels vs demons flick that was Legion and the sci-fi meets western movie that was Priest. Both of those were okay without being much more. And the same goes for Dark Skies. Compared to his other movies, Dark Skies has a more intimate feel to it and the tension builds up gradually. Stewart takes his time setting up the story, gets us acquainted with the family before leading us to the climax of the film that finds the family barricading themselves in the house on the 4th of July. Ah yes, the climax… as Dizzee Rascal would say, it’s bonkers.

Up to that point the movie is definitely good for a night’s entertainment though even if you may have already seen plenty of the same elements in other movies. It would make for a good drinking game… guess the movie a particular scene is based on and have a shot.