Movie Review: DARK SKIES

Dark Skies was released in theaters in February and is available on Blu-Ray/DVD today. This movie stars Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton (not the baseball player) with a small but important appearance by J.K. Simmons.  Dark Skies was written and directed by Scott Stewart (not to be confused with ESPN anchor Stewart Scott), who previously made such movies as Legion and Priest.




This movie is advertised (poorly) as being from the producers of Paranormal Activity and Insidious. It seems like every horror movie is advertised with some sort of tie-in with Paranormal Activity, much the same way that 2 years ago  every movie was by somebody who made Saw.  Overall, it's not a horror movie in the way those movies are as it's much more a psychological thriller.   

Dark Skies tells the story of a suburban family that begins to have a bunch of strange things happen at their house, from all of the home security sensors being at the same time to all of the pictures on the mantle just disappearing.  The problem escalates as the family members begin to be affected by having hallucinations and starring off in a daze like a possessed individual from the Paranormal Activity movies. 

 This was an interesting movie that never reached the heights that it could have.  Dark Skies wasn't scary enough to be a horror movie, but not smart enough to be a thriller.  The performances from the cast are very good, especially the always exceptional Keri Russell, who is the fuel for this movie and keeps it from becoming a colossal failure.  While it doesn't trudge any new ground and there have been better movies of the same ilk done before, Dark Skies doesn't drag and is captivating enough to make it worth checking out.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5