Dark Skies - An Alien Flick That Scares (JAR OF FATE #6)
Like many horror fans, I obsessively collect horror movies on DVD and Blu-Ray. They sit in piles around my tiny apartment. Some are collector’s editions, some come from Scream Factory, lots of them are gifts. Some come from the $5 bin at Walmart, and a lot come from library sales where they’re only $1. Or that time HMV went out of business and I bought their entire horror collection for like $100. And sure, I may have four copies of Carrie, but I regret nothing.
Unfortunately, obsessively picking up horror movies means there’s a lot I haven’t watched. Whether it be that I’ve never seen the movie before, or I haven’t seen this particular version, or I have never cracked open the DVD because the movie is streaming and I’m lazy.
How do I solve this guilt I have as I sit streaming Netflix while piles of DVD’s surround me, judging quietly? I made a TO BE WATCHED jar, or as my friend Zo named it; JAR OF FATE. I went through my collection and wrote down all the movies I wanted to watch on little scraps of paper and whenever I want to watch something, I pull randomly from the jar.
The sixth random choice was Dark Skies, an alien flick from 2013 written and directed by Scott Stewart, starring Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, and J.K. Simmons.
Basic Premise
Daniel and Liz are a married couple with two sons, the youngest named Sammy and the elder named Jesse. They’re in tough times that a lot of families go through – Daniel has been laid off, the bills are piling up, Liz is a realtor in a tough housing market, and Jesse is hanging out with someone much older than him. But the family is staying afloat. Until strange things start happening in their home. One night Liz awakens to find her fridge and pantry raided – there’s food and a mess everywhere and the back door is open. The next night she finds all of the objects in the kitchen stacked in strange geometrical shapes.
Meanwhile, Sammy is talking about The Sandman, a story that Jesse told him, but Sammy seems to think it’s real and the Sandman is visiting him in his room. The family install security cams and alarms but strange things continue – three flocks of birds fly into the house mass killing themselves, Liz sees a figure in Sammy’s room, Sammy has bruises all over his body and Jesse has geometrical brands on his.
Something strange is going on and Liz takes charge investigating what exactly is hurting her family.
“Sammy do you know who did this?”
The Sandman…”
Here’s what I loved (SPOILERS):
This is a creepy movie and has so many bone chilling scenes. I’d seen this flick before a long while back but I still remembered some scenes so clearly. The first was the house alarm scene. The family awakens to the house alarm screaming and as they run around checking, the security company gets on the phone. They let them know that it must have been some sort of malfunction because all 8 entry points were triggered at the exact same time which is virtually impossible. As Daniel is speaking to the phone company, Liz discovers every single one of their family photos has disappeared leaving the frames blank. It leaves such a horrifying drop in your stomach as you try to sort out how or what could’ve breached 8 entry points simultaneously only to steal all their family photos.
Another great scene is when Liz awakens to find a figure standing over Sammy’s bed, it’s alien-like, and she freaks out and turns on the light only to find both Sammy and the figure missing. Sammy is in the yard in some sort of sleep walk. It’s our first glimpse of the aliens and while it’s only a shadowy figure, it’s pretty scary. And that’s what I think is great about this movie and why it remains very scary – you never truly see the aliens. They’re always shadowy figures looming in the background. A lot is left up to your imagination and oh boy, it’s going to run wild. Add that to many strange and frightening occurrences and this movie is going to stick with you late at night.
Liz is also a highlight of this movie for me. She’s a strong woman going through the worst of times with a useless husband, she’s working her ass off every day to keep this family going. When she is questioned over Sammy’s bruises or Jesse’s branding, you can feel her heart shatter at the thought that anyone would do this to her children, or worse yet – that people think she did it. The husband is awful though. Probably my only annoyance in this movie. From the get go he is the *Jean Ralphio voice* WOOORRRSSSTTT. In the opening scenes he’s annoyed that his wife won’t have sex with him because she’s busy working. Like…dude…you have no job? You have an incredible wife who is working and keeping your dumbass fed, and she won’t have sex with you so you roll over pouting making her feel guilty. NAH BRAH. He also lies to her and flips things around blaming her for them and OH EHM GEE it made me SO ANGRY. She’s the one that does the RESEARCH MONTAGE and finds J.K. Simmons’ character who is considered an alien expert. She’s out there doing the hard work to save her family, and we love her for it.
The alien lore in this is great! When they go to the token “alien expert” to find out more, J. K. Simmons tells us a lot of backstory without being too ridiculous. In this flick, the aliens are the greys, a common type of alien form that people see. We realize how long this family has been under silent attack from them, and how they target families where they can sneak a child away without too much suspicion from the authorities. A chilling scene is when Liz sees a wall covered in missing children’s faces, realizing her child might be next. We learn that the family has implants in them which is completely unnerving. And we also learn that they are in extreme danger of losing Sammy.
Which leads me to my last point – the twist ending. We love a twist. During the ending of this movie we’re convinced Sammy is the one that the greys want to take because he seemed to be the one first contacted. The family goes to great means to protect him, only at the last minute to watch the greys take their older son Jesse. Turns out, Jesse was contacted when he was a baby, which meant technically he was the first, and the one the greys were targeting all along. In the end Daniel and Liz with Sammy in tow have moved to a smaller place, their whole community thinking they did something to Jesse, and as Liz digs through old boxes, she finds Jesse’s childhood drawings. All of them are Jesse in bed surrounded by the greys. And then Sammy’s walkie talkie kicks in and we hear Jesse calling for help.
“People think of aliens as these beings invading our planet in some great cataclysm, destroying monuments, stealing our natural resources. But it's not like that at all. The invasion already happened.”
Overall, this is a great fucking alien movie. It’s like if The Fourth Kind and Signs had a baby on the fourth of July. It’s super scary, it’s super awesome, and is a lot of fun to watch. Highly recommend!
Don’t want to miss anything on the site? Sign up for our newsletter HERE
Want more from horror movie reviews? Just search below:
