Dark Skies (2013, Dir. Scott Stewart, USA) (Cert: 15) ***

The Barrett’s live a quiet, suburban life. Lacy (Russell) is trying to sell an old house that’s been on the market for a long time whilst Daniel (Hamilton) is struggling with the bills and his hopes for a big promotion are slim. After hearing horror stories about “The Sandman”, youngest child Sam (Rockett) seems to be the main target for some strange goings on around the house when some weird paranormal signs start to appear.

 

In the late 1970’s, director Steven Spielberg envisioned a project known as  Night Skies. Intended as a pseudo-sequel to Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977), Night Skies would follow on the idea of alien contact but on a more nefarious and horror-centric note. Ultimately, the project came to nothing and instead the idea flowed into two separate films; the Spielberg-directed, E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and the Spielberg-produced, Poltergeist (1982). Although Dark Skies doesn’t seem to have any real connection with Spielberg, it’s hard not to look at that title and see the setting of quiet all-American suburbia and think that this film essentially is trying to answer the question of what if Spielberg had in fact made his Close Encounters sequel.

 

Night Skies does tip its hat towards those films; especially Close Encounters and Poltergeist as well as also showing strong influences from The Birds (1963), The Shining (1980) and The Exorcist (1973). Night Skies is not in the same league in terms of quality as those films, but they are all genre classics. The film takes from so many horror films in influence that it doesn’t really make itself stand out, but there’s nothing that’s that troublesome about the film on a technical level. It looks good and has a fairly engaging story with some pretty clear, if intended, subtext (the film is set on the 4^th of July weekend. It’s hard not to see a film set in suburban America where someone’s fending off aliens with America The Beautiful playing in the background without seeing some sort of political slant). Overall, enjoyable but nothing special.