Dark Skies Quicktake: Not a great horror movie, but one of the best alien abduction films.
Nothing sends chills down viewers’ spines like haunted house movies. It’s a timeless premise that taps into our collective fears.
Who hasn’t been home alone one night and suddenly felt the hair on the back of their neck stand up? We’re hardwired to fear creepy houses where things go bump in the night.
Writer-director Scott Stewart’s Dark Skies takes the classic haunting premise and adds a modern spin. Stewart eases viewers in to the experience with a series of haunted house movie cliches before defying expectations with a sci-fi twist.
VIDEO REVIEW
Lacy (Keri Russell) and Daniel Barrett (Josh Hamilton) look like they’re living the American dream. The Barretts have two healthy sons, Jesse (Dakota Goyo) and his little brother Sam (Kadan Rockett). They live together in a beautiful home on a quiet street in an idyllic suburb.
They may be keeping up appearances, but all is not right behind closed doors. Daniel is out of work with no good prospects, and the family is behind on their bills. Making matters worse, Jesse has been acting out.
When young Sam tells everyone the Sandman visits him at night, it’s just one more concern to add to the growing pile. It turns out the family’s plunging credit score is the least of their problems. Sam’s nighttime visitations are a precursor to something much worse.
The whole family starts witnessing strange phenomena. Something keeps tripping their alarm system at night, and they’re waking up to find their furniture rearranged.
Soon after, people start blacking out and waking up with strange marks on their bodies. When Daniel combs over his new video surveillance system, he discovers a presence that defies explanation.
“The scariest aspect of the Barrett’s situation is they have no way to fight back. “
Dark Skies uses a less is more approach to scare the bejesus out of you. The film explores an extraordinary sci-fi premise through the lens of an intimate drama about a struggling family.
Dark Skies hit theatres in 2013, so I’ll give a minor spoiler warning here. And I say minor because the film’s opening title card shares an Arthur C. Clarke quote that spoils the mystery.
The supernatural presence menacing the Barretts isn’t ghosts, demons, or a child’s psychic manifestations. It’s aliens.
You feel the alien presence more than you see it. And when you do see the creatures, they’re often out of focus or obscured in shadow. Stewart doesn’t rely on blood, guts, and fancy monster effects to freak out viewers. Instead, he prefers to slip in under your radar to mess with you on a gut level.
The film’s scariest scenes occur at night, but you sense the alien intruders preying on the Barretts, even while the sun is shining. Cinematographer David Boyd’s camera often looms high in the sky, like an all-seeing predator hunting the characters down below. Behind closed doors, the camera inches its way towards the Barretts, like it’s playing a sinister game of Mother May I.
“Its style and tone align with classic haunted house flicks like The Conjuring…”
The grey aliens here make terrifying antagonists because they’re unknowable. We don’t know what they want and why they’re messing with this one family. The scariest aspect of the Barrett’s situation is they have no way to fight back.
The story builds to an over-the-top showdown between the Barretts and the invaders. The climax feels like a letdown because it betrays the movie we thought we were watching. It feels like the result of a script that painted itself into a corner.
What stands out about Dark Skies is how this tale of space invaders doesn’t feel sci-fi. Its style and tone align with classic haunted house flicks like The Conjuring, Insidious, and Paranormal Activity. The Barretts don’t know they’re dealing with aliens until J.K. Simmons’ weary Ufologist Edwin Pollard shows up late in the second act to drop some knowledge.
Here’s where things get interesting. Dark Skies is based on a real-life phenomenon known as alien abduction. People who experience alien abductions (abductees) report waking up in the night paralyzed and seeing short grey beings standing over their bed.
Abductees describe being brought on board a craft against their will where they’re experimented on before being returned home. These stories sound like the stuff of pulp novels. Yet, they’ve been reported for decades by thousands of people from all around the world.
“Alien abduction mythology is a ripe source for horror movie adaptations.”
Alien abduction mythology exploded in popularity in the ‘80s and ‘90s with the mainstream success of the best-selling novel Communion and the hit series The X-Files. South Park’s famous anal probe jokes come from what traumatized real-life people have reported.
Most alleged abductees are mentally stable people with accomplished careers. Many of them don’t want their accounts publicized and don’t try to profit from their stories. Some have passed lie detector tests, and many seek therapy to deal with the emotional trauma inflicted by these encounters. It doesn’t matter whether alien abductions are real or imagined; the experiencers believe they’re real.
Alien abduction mythology is a ripe source for horror movie adaptations. Hollywood began producing alien abduction movies in the ‘70s, starting with The UFO Incident – a TV movie based on the story of Betty and Barney Hill.
The Hills, who claimed aliens abducted them during a 1961 road trip, are the first Americans to publicly disclose this type of extraterrestrial encounter.
Even though alien abduction movies have been around for almost 50-years now, no filmmaker has nailed the formula yet. Communion, Fire in the Sky, and Intruders include a handful of standout moments, but each film has too many flaws to be considered a good overall film.
“Dark Skies covers abduction-related phenomena such as missing time, implants, fugue states, PTSD, and the greys.”
Stewart scores points for staying true to “accepted” alien abduction lore. Dark Skies covers abduction-related phenomena such as missing time, implants, fugue states, PTSD, and the greys. It still isn’t the deepest exploration of alien lore, but the film does an excellent job mining these elements for bone-chilling scares.
Dark Skies asks viewers to consider the unthinkable. What if human beings are not earth’s apex predators? What if some higher forms of intelligence are toying with us like rats in a maze?
Characters in horror movies often make dumb decisions. And to be clear, the Barretts make their share of questionable choices. Dark Skies, however, works well as a commentary on how living in a state of perpetual stress and anxiety eats away at our ability to make sound decisions.
The Barretts are fighting two battles: avoiding financial ruin and E.T.s. Lacy and Daniel have normalized living in a state of dread. They’re so entangled in perpetual worry once the aliens show up, it’s too much to process.
They have tangible problems to fix before they can even think about the supernatural woo-woo taking place. The film speaks to how people can let a terrible problem spiral out of control before addressing it.
“Dark Skies will appeal to people into alien abduction mythology.”
If you’re looking for an eerie haunting movie, you could do a lot worse than Dark Skies, which is a decent, albeit flawed choice. While it’s slow and features thinly-sketched characters, it’s still capable of getting under your skin to unnerve you.
In the plus column, Dark Skies features great performances from Russell, Hamilton, and Simmons, excellent production values, and a chilling premise. It’s a fun ride until it flies off the rails in the final act.
Dark Skies will appeal to people into alien abduction mythology. It’s also one of the better cinematic representations of abduction lore, which speaks volumes about the sad state of this underserved genre.
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