Review of Dark Skies (2013) by Armi C — 21 Jun 2013

Dark Skies wow. I was expecting a little more actually. This has a sort of 80's movie vibe going for it. I was a little disappointed by it. While I felt it would probably be better than a few other recent horror movies, by bar level wasn't very high for it, and I proved correct.

The premise seemed very simple, but yet the trailers kinda pulled me into the theaters to see this film. I enjoyed that Keri Russell was in this it kinda intrigued me even more. Congrats to the studio for pure spooky trailers.

Now onto the review. The problems I had with the film are, the script, cast, ending, and the suspense level. The script is good, well fairly, but I don't really get what Daniel getting a new job has to do with the plot of the film.

I mean we have so much wasted time in the script, with stuff that has nothing to do with the premise. This is of aliens, haunting the family. I don't get why they put a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with this.

I mean so we have the boy, Jesse and he's in this house and he's cupping this girls boob and then her kissing him for the first time. I mean what does that have to do with the premise? I know that it adds an emotional statues for Jesse, but I mean it literally should have been shortened to include just the two kissing, I really don't find the part where he's cupping her boob very appropriate for the movie subject.

It would have been sweeter, and a sort of calming notion and to slow the pace, that the beginning had started to give the audience time to relax a little. Plus it's sad that the script spent very little time with J.

K Simmons character. He stole the show. Well now onto the cast. I mean you have a few wonderful cast members and others more head ache prones. Well J.k Simmons was great as well as Keri Russell, and Kadan Rockett, as well as Dakota Goyo.

But the problem with the cast is, Josh Hamilton, as Daniel, and L. J. Benet as Ratface or whatever they call him. Josh is just a headache. He has no idea what he's doing, and poor Keri has to do all the acting for him.

He can't make anything realistic if it killed him. His acting is so wooden, that the only thing I liked about his time on screen was when he beat on the other actor I hated on screen, Ratface. L. J.

is just plain old ugly, and his acting is even worse you can tell he's faking everything he says, and acts like he was rushed into a bus. Its ridicules! Now onto the ending. I really don't get it.

It's set three months after the other ending. So Keri and the little boy are in his room when the little phone thingy goes off and starts saying who knows what. That's the thing that got me; I didn't understand anything it was saying.

It was way too much jumbling and static. Well at least Keri understood it, because the viewers surely didn't. But what I did like about it is that Keri finds out that they wanted Jesse all along. That I found wrapped up the mystery.

As I've mentioned is that the script added scenes that didn't really belong, which brought down the suspense level, of the movie. It did pretty well over all but the suspense went up and down way too much.

Now to get onto the brighter side of the movie, which includes, cast, length, character development, scares, and suspense. The cast is included on both the worst and best. Because half the cast is great.

Keri Russell and J.K Simmons are the high lights of the cast. Dakota Goyo is also good. Keri Russell picks up the slack from half of the cast. She adds much of the suspense, and she actually seems like she is enjoying every minute on set.

She was excellent, and kept this movie from going to 2 stars. Keri Russell could not do everything you know, J.K Simmons also steamed up the late middle towards the end, with a horrorific performance.

He freaking scared me to death, with his creepy kinda alien informer kinda cat dude. Loved him. Also overall the kid performers in this movie were a bit above bad too. They weren't great but with a little bit more acting classes and they'd be stars like Keri and J.

K! The length is suited very well. I think they knew how to not make it too long, so as to not lose viewers. But not too short, as to include more chills. So that was well spot on! The character development was spot on for all the characters.

You really feel for every character even the less well acted (Daniel, Ratface). I felt a lot for one character more so then others. That would be Jesse. I felt how much pressure he had on him, and that he was very emotional.

I felt when he was happy; I felt his character so much that I cried at the end. While the tear was small it was still a tear! I never do that during most horror movies. I just don't feel anything for the characters in horror films except for them being another body bag to add to the pile.

This film promises some really good scares, and I feel them. My arm hairs stood up when Daniel went into the room to check on Sammy, and Sammy had no eyes. It was scary as hell. And when the birds flew into the window, man that was an original fright, and unexpected actually.

The part with J.K Simmons was also pretty spooky. The suspense level is good and bad. Bad, as I already explained, and good, because I felt the chills even to start. Even though the suspense went up and down it went up more than down for me.

All an All this horror movie is smarter than the average horror film but not that higher up. C+.