Dark Skies

I have been waiting for a good alien horror movie for a while now.  It was such a trope in the 90s & early 00s, with Signs being the last good thing M. Night Shyamalan ever did (thus ruining Night as a badass middle name forever).  

But I digress.

This is a very solid movie.  It's suspenseful, and the jump scares worked well (at least on me).  It kept the tension high by keeping the antagonists of the film in the shadows.  So many modern horror movies try to scare you with brightly lit, finely detailed creatures.  While often these are beautifully constructed, they're never as terrifying as something you can just barely see in the dark.

The film stars a young couple and their two young boys.  It fails the Bechtel test spectacularly, managing to have three named female characters who never speak to each other about anything but their (inevitably all male) families.  It's a straight up old fashioned maternal tale, with a mother who turns to odd explanations and a father who is prone to violent & aggressive outbursts.  This makes a very convenient excuse for why people are suspicious of these folks.  They're also solidly upper-middle class, behind on their mortgage due to the father's layoff from a major firm, being supported by the mother, who lets her maternal instincts get in the way of her doing her job as a real estate agent.  Falling back on these tropes is, to say the least, less than ideal.

In spite of all this, I have to admit the movie is very successful.  It has jumps and bumps in all the right places.  There's paranoia, social rejection and blackouts.  There are creepy kids and sleepwalking.  There are conveniently blurred security videos, though (thank god) it is not a found footage film.  It has a lot of traditional horror aspects, and really brilliantly blends them together into something that feels coherent.  That's not easy to do.

The oldest son is the most dimensional character, followed by his mother.  He's young and naive and believes pornography is a representation of how dating actually works and has an older friend who's not a good influence.  In spite of their stereotypes the actors still manage to pull off seeming like a real, if troubled, suburban family.

Is this movie groundbreaking?  No.  Did it successfully evoke emotion towards it's main characters, build suspense and then make me jump out of my seat?  It most certainly did.