Featured Audience Ratings

• MisterYoda ?

  
  three stars

• Directors C

  
  [img]http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/user/icons/icon13.gif[/img]

• Jeff "

  
  Dark Skies is a mediocre horror film that tends to rely heavily on clichés of previous horror films to create its tension on-screen. The film uses old ideas that we've seen many times before in other films. This picture had the potential of being a great film; instead it just… More
  Dark Skies is a mediocre horror film that tends to rely heavily on clichés of previous horror films to create its tension on-screen. The film uses old ideas that we've seen many times before in other films. This picture had the potential of being a great film; instead it just barely makes for an entertaining movie. It relies on cheap jump scares that are bland, and tiresome. This could have been a memorable horror yarn, but it just doesn't deliver the goods that horror fans want. It's all recycled ideas and the sad thing is, is that the film started off with lots of potential, but halfway through it starts coming apart. Dark Skies I found was another bland horror affair that just doesn't deliver. The performances are wooden and don't stand out and the directing is sloppy with no emphasis on trying to create atmospheric tension and suspense. I feel that if the film would have relied more on those elements, then this horror tale would have been a memorable and very entertaining picture that is truly worth checking out. I really wanted to enjoy the film, but I felt that it was a mediocre attempt at horror and a cheap way to recycle old ideas that we've seen many times before. There have been far better horror films this year, but Dark Skies just makes you want more out of a film. With a more thought out story and a better cast, this film could have truly been one of the best horror films of the year. However the end result simply doesn't satisfy and Dark Skies just disappoints.

• Matt G

  
  Subtly creepy and well-acted.

• Mark H

  
  Dark Skies isn't innovative, but thankfully it sidesteps tired genre conventions at least. The blood/gore factor is virtually non-existent. The lazy technique relying on loud bursts of noise to cause jump scares, is kept to a minimum. Even the "Gotcha! It was all a… More
  Dark Skies isn't innovative, but thankfully it sidesteps tired genre conventions at least. The blood/gore factor is virtually non-existent. The lazy technique relying on loud bursts of noise to cause jump scares, is kept to a minimum. Even the "Gotcha! It was all a dream" gag is intelligently toyed with in an early scene. The script seems aware of overused plot devices. It's extremely spooky in parts. Furthermore, it never shows more than it should, so the threat always feels mysterious. No this isn't original, but it manages to create a pretty evocative mood. What it lacks in creativity, it makes up for in creepiness. fastfilmreviews.wordpress.com

• The Movie W

  
  Daniel (Hamilton) and Lacy (Russell), a suburban couple with two boys, find themselves plagued by a series of increasingly strange and disturbing occurrences. It begins with cutlery being rearranged in the kitchen and the usual bumps in the night. Youngest son Sammy (Rockett) claims… More
  Daniel (Hamilton) and Lacy (Russell), a suburban couple with two boys, find themselves plagued by a series of increasingly strange and disturbing occurrences. It begins with cutlery being rearranged in the kitchen and the usual bumps in the night. Youngest son Sammy (Rockett) claims it's the work of "The Sandman" who visits him at night but his parents don't take him seriously. After installing an alarm, they find their home is still inexplicably being breached. One afternoon, a flock of birds commit mass suicide by flying into the house from three different directions. Lacy investigates and, after consulting alien expert Edwin Pollard (Simmons), discovers Sammy is being targeted for abduction. It's often said that horror movies subconsciously reflect the mood of the time they were released. During the thirties, movies like 'Dracula' and 'The Mummy' reflected America's fear of the mass immigration the country was experiencing. The shooting of Duane Jones in 'Night of the Living Dead' echoed that of Martin Luther King. When rednecks were killing out-of-their-depth city dwellers in 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and 'Deliverance', who couldn't think of Vietnam? 'Dark Skies' makes a conscious effort to reflect the global financial crisis but it does so in an exceptionally ham-fisted manner. For the movie's first half, we're constantly told how the family are struggling yet we see no real evidence of this. Lots of money appears to be spent on installing CCTV cameras and alarm systems. Lacy seems to hold down a real estate job despite showing no evidence that she possesses any sales ability. The story is told by the numbers but, if you can stay awake and pay attention, you'll see the numbers don't add up. Writer-director Stewart seems to be working from a first draft script which nobody else bothered to read. Had they taken the time to check, they would have found a host of inconsistencies. We learn early on that the aliens can move through walls yet, in the film's climax, the family make a huge deal of boarding up their windows. The oldest son, Jessie (Goyo), is 14 at the start of the film but regresses to 13 at the film's end. In the aftermath of the bird attack, a clean-up crew are kitted out in HazMat suits yet they allow a pair of teenage boys to run around the closed off scene picking up birds with their bare hands. You're left wondering who is dumber; the film's creator or the film's characters? In one scene, Lacy blacks out, losing the previous six hours. After watching 'Dark Skies', you'll wish you could lose the previous two.

• Jeff B

  
  In trying to take the haunted house formula on a journey to a dimension beyond sight and sound, the occasionally spooktacular Dark Skies doesn't exactly twilight zone out its audience, but this close encounter is still light years away from perfection. Very recently, The… More
  In trying to take the haunted house formula on a journey to a dimension beyond sight and sound, the occasionally spooktacular Dark Skies doesn't exactly twilight zone out its audience, but this close encounter is still light years away from perfection. Very recently, The Possession and Sinister (which shares the same producer) utilized a very similar Easy Bake recipe: A combustible family dynamic gets exasperated by seemingly paranormal goings-on, so they endure everything but a haunted kitchen sink getting thrown at them before consulting an expert. Here, however, screenwriter/director Scott Stewart smartly tries letting the household tension simmer while the extraterrestrial scares slow-boil. Sometimes effective and sometimes patently absurd, this mix ultimately proves as stable as a house of Mars Attacks cards. In this PG-13-rated slice of sci-fi-horror, a husband (Hamilton) and wife (Russell) try confronting the unimaginably terrifying otherworldly force has targeted their family. Even faced with hauntings of the third kind, Keri Russell's on-screen likeability always leaves moviegoers wanting more. Together with Josh Hamilton and two confused therapy-bound kids, they comprise the Barretts, a family unit undergoing a sort of alien autopsy. In cutting open Stewart's directorial intentions, however, we find an opening scene that presents an overcooked slice of apple pie Americana with a forced faux-Rockwellian sheen that seems more akin to Pod People than suburb normalcy. Surely, he didn't mean to suggest that everyone may've already been abducted lest it make the Barrett's plight seem less dire and important. It's poor choices like these that make this thriller nothing to phone home about. Bottom line: The half-truth is out there.

• Christopher H

  
  "Dark Skies" is formulaic and borrows multiple concepts from dozens of films, but writer-director Scott Stewart still finds a way to make the most of this familiar story about the most unfamiliar of subjects; aliens. With themes galore and several key performances,… More
  "Dark Skies" is formulaic and borrows multiple concepts from dozens of films, but writer-director Scott Stewart still finds a way to make the most of this familiar story about the most unfamiliar of subjects; aliens. With themes galore and several key performances, specifically Keri Russell, who delves deep for this role, "Dark Skies" produces some hair-raising moments and satisfies with a creepiness all its own. Borrowing plot lines from films like "Signs", "Paranormal Activity", and "Poltergeist", the film never feels entirely unique and makes some rookie choices when dealing with character development and the major letdown of the ending, while a completely revolutionary ending was right at its fingertips. Despite all its shortcomings, the film had me on the edge of my seat and the constant cycle of nightly events, made infamous by the "Paranormal Activity" franchise offers up a certainty that occurrences are bound to happen. Also, the visuals of the aliens themselves was spot on, providing an updated look to the image with associate with extraterrestrial while still scaring the crap out of you. For the most part I enjoyed this film and thought with a few tweaks, this could have been a showstopper but instead remains an above average alien flick.

• Andrew P

  
  Dark Skies suffers from not really knowing which kind of genre it wants to fit in. Upon first glance, it's a horror, but with little jumps throughout, it soon becomes obvious that Dark Skies is trying to be something else. It's tense, it's got a creepy vibe about it, it… More
  Dark Skies suffers from not really knowing which kind of genre it wants to fit in. Upon first glance, it's a horror, but with little jumps throughout, it soon becomes obvious that Dark Skies is trying to be something else. It's tense, it's got a creepy vibe about it, it leaves a lot to the imagination, and while that might be it's goal to make it scary, it almost reads as a thriller to me. It can't add anything that we haven't seen before, but I can list things that I like about it. I think the family has a pretty strong story, the design of the creatures is never really revealed, the setting and style is a wonderful touch, but none of this is outstanding. It's worth a watch but nothing about Dark Skies proves it to be anything but average.

Read all 9 featured audience ratings