Dark Skies centres on a family whose normal life is interrupted when they start noticing strange occurrences happening around them that leads them to believe that a mysterious and malevolent force is targeting them. Sold on the strength of the fact that it’s from the producers of Insidious and Sinister, two of the strongest American horrors of recent years, Dark Skies is neither as scary nor as well put together as either of those films.
More spooky than it is outright scary, the film takes a leaf from the book of the Paranormal Activity franchise in the sense that intermittent scares take precedent over full-on shock or gore tactics. While admirable in its lower key intent it’s undoubtedly a tamer experience than one might hope.
Swaying between supernatural horror and family drama, it ever quite finds its feet as either and just sort of muddles along with whatever scares it can muster up. It’s undeniable creepy in places, whenever characters do something completely out of the ordinary as a result of the mysterious force that’s plaguing their lives, while it can come across as quite silly in others. There are times when you’re not sure whether to shudder or laugh and it’s not the kind of knowing horror where the latter is in any way intentional.
You can feel the presence of a lot of other similar films from years past lurking around every corner. It’s a little bit Paranormal Activity, a little Signs, some Amityville Horror, some of Poltergeist, a hint of The Haunting, as well as the aforementioned Insidious and Sinister (and on and on it goes). But rather than feeling like it’s inspired by those past successes it stands in the shadow of them and is never quite able to forge an identity for itself as any sort of unique horror experience. That would be okay if it were anything close to terrifying but it frequently falls short of the mark.
Amidst all the supernatural goings on there’s a well-meaning and interesting thread in there somewhere about the breaking up of a family unit and how even the strongest of outside forces shouldn’t keep loved ones apart but the film has neither the time nor the means to fully deliver on that ambitious undertaking. J.K. Simmons turns up at one point as a sort of expert on the type of thing that’s harassing the family – giving the film some much-needed gravitas – and while his one scene is probably the strongest of all, it feels like he’s from an entirely different movie that isn’t trying so hard to be other movies that it admires.
It just about gets by on the strength of some strong performances, especially from the two child actors (one of which you might recognise as Hugh Jackman’s plucky son from Real Steel), and a few genuinely effective moments that have the ability to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention. But there just aren’t enough to sustain what is ultimately a rather mild and derivative horror.
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Dark Skies is released in UK cinemas on April 3rd.