Dark Skies supernatural shlock
Alien-invasion film borrows heavily from early works of Spielberg
Are there aliens living among us, and furthermore, are they remaking all our old movies? Maybe not, but somebody is to blame for the return of ancient TV programs and films about interstellar invasions, and — as any Internet conspiracy theorist can tell you — the government plot to cover it all up. It just might be ET.
If it is, he’s showing his nasty side in Dark Skies, a thriller about creatures from another planet who have come to Earth and are slowly taking over. The first to go, it appears, are the movie studios.
The film doesn’t appear to be connected to the 1990s TV series of the same name. Instead, filmmaker Scott Stewart (director of the derivative Paul Bettany film Priest) borrows heavily from early Steven Spielberg — the Saturday-matinee Spielberg, before he got all fancy-pants in pictures like Lincoln — to tell the story of an ordinary family, the Barretts, who see their lives slowly being consumed by strange creatures that seem to have watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Poltergeist several times before the invasion.
It begins slowly, and with an economic subtext that makes you realize Dark Skies is also trying to be a metaphor for the collapse of Middle America. We pass a suburban scene of kids on swings, people enjoying backyard barbecues, U.S. flags waving proudly. But something is wrong: there’s talk about “the Chinese” and “the Fed,” and the coming economic apocalypse.
It’s already hit the Barrett household. Daniel (Josh Hamilton), the sort of ineffectual nice guy who’s eventually going to have to buy a gun to protect his stake in the American dream, is out of work and can’t find another job. His wife Lacy (Keri Russell) is a real estate agent who can’t sell a house. Teenage son Jesse (Dakota Goyo) is in the middle of his sexual awakening, a sure sign of symbolic trouble to come. And 5-year-old Sam (Kadan Rockett) is having a little trouble with his fantasy life, insofar as he thinks the Sandman is coming at night to steal his eyes.
In other words, just like in the country at large, everything is fine on the surface but rotting underneath. Odd things are occurring at the Barrett house: someone spilling food from the fridge, someone stealing family pictures from their frames. “There’s no sign of forced entry,” say the police, in voice of official complacency in all things.
We know something more is going on if only from the Spielbergian imagery — a kid on a bike at night, the diffuse lights that bathe a quiet street in supernatural portent, the moment when boarded-up windows are opened when the screws are undone from the other side (italics Spielberg’s). The Barretts themselves occasionally wander off in a stupor, their mouths held wide open. And then there’s that strange rash behind Daniel’s ear ...
It’s the everyday perverted by the uncanny, a familiar trope that’s acted out with a minimum of fuss by a cast that knows it’s playing a supporting role to a grand idea — “The invasion already happened. They’re here,” says the creepy expert (played by J.K. Simmons), who is easily as disturbing as the infiltration he reveals.
The climax comes at a July 4 celebration, with the fireworks that mark American freedom exploding in ironic counterpoint to the collapsing family that is living in poverty, disgrace, fear and danger. Even the neighbours suspect them of something. Dark Skies is a drama of the fraught modern world, but Stewart doesn’t tie it together. He just throws it all out there in the hope that something will stick. We’ve been frightened — and awestruck — by these images and ideas before. They’re here all right, and they’re never leaving.