Dark Skies

Close Encounters of the Third Kind was perhaps the first film to deal seriously with the U.F.O.  / alien abduction phenomenon. That film had a strong dose of thriller-suspense to it. So it was only a matter of time before someone came along and took the next logical step: taking the same premise and making an outright horror movie out of it.

Enter: 2013's Dark Skies. Dark Skies takes the haunted house concept and substitutes aliens for ghosts or demons. In fact if you took Dark Skies and swapped the alien manipulation for demonic possession, there would be little to distinguish it from Paranormal Activity.

The film effectively builds an eerie tension throughout, and all four principal actors (Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, and Kadan Rockett) do an excellent job at portraying a family legitimately being terrorized by an unknown enemy.

The only problem is that Dark Skies spends an hour and fifteen minutes of its hour and thirty seven minute run time building the suspense and then less than fifteen minutes trying to pay that off in the final fifteen. It can't help but feel like a bit of a letdown.

If all you are looking for is scares, Dark Skies is there for you. If on the other hand you're hoping for a film that finishes as strong or it began, you're likely going to be disappointed.