As the Barret family's peaceful suburban life is rocked by an escalating series of disturbing events, they come to learn that a terrifying and deadly force is after them.
Taken on its own limited terms, Dark Skies engages while it lasts but misses the opportunity to really bring something worthwhile and different to the genre.
It settles into extraterrestrial hokum, but still generates reasonably unsettling moments.
[Has] a rather lacklustre climax...until then, the picture is pretty effective.
Solidly crafted.
This would like to be the Paranormal Activity of alien encounter films, down to a surveillance video subplot, but it’s more on the level of midlist spookers like Boogeyman or The Messengers. It’s unnerving while you’re watching it – Stewart stages one or two genuine jump-out-of-your-seat scares – but you might find it’s a gap in your memory a week or two later.
Zero points for originality, but interestingly messy at the same time.
Alienating.
Dark Skies doesn't have a plot, just a series of haunted-house scares, none of which would serve any purpose to an extra-terrestrial invader.
Some frights, but nothing you haven't jumped at before.
As I say, the shock of the new is not among the shocks, and this movie even includes the time-honoured horror trope of the child's drawing innocently depicting something horrifying, something that has survived a dozen spoofs.
If the dour home-invasion chiller Dark Skies needs one thing, it’s aliens with more novel ideas.
At odds with the rest of the film’s content, the handling of the climactic assault on the family serves to undo the goodwill Dark Skies had built up.
Moderately effective.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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