“Dark Skies”

Rated PG-13 for violence, terror throughout, sexual material, drug content and language–all involving teens.

In “Dark Skies”, there are so many bits and pieces of past, and far better, films it looks like a Junior High Film Club’s clumsy montage of space alien and horror cinematic idolatry.

I spotted “Poltergeist”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, “The Amityville Horror”, “The Exorcist”, “The Birds”, and, most crassly, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial”. One would think that with all these films for inspiration, one good solid original idea would come to the filmmakers and they would run with it, but apparently, imitation can be the severest form of creative inarticulation.

Just a normal American family with average family problems; Mom, a real estate agent, too honest for personal profit; Dad, a laid off architect and is struggling to find a job (no wonder since he can’t seem to shave himself before a job interview), an older son, hanging around with an older friend getting a sexual education prematurely and a younger son, so beguiling, one needs closed-caption to understand his “cwoot, wibble, wynes,” about being scared of spacemen cutting out his eyes. This abNormal Rockwell painting turns “Edward Gorey” when, in the middle of the night, something drags the garbage out leaving a nasty trail, as if some sullen teenager was determined to make his parents sorry for asking him to take out the trash. (Cue the bonehead police who come to that very conclusion.) Then 800 birds attack the house; family photographs mysteriously disappear from frames; a fascinating, structure is created in the kitchen projecting geometric images on the ceiling; Mom and Dad experience mysterious blackouts and rashes, the younger kid wets his pants while he is “not me” and the older brother becomes branded with astronomical signs. They go to see an expert—a terrible waste of J. K. Simmons who was clearly forced to do his cameo under the influence of depressants and on a set that had an idea and then lost it before we saw it.

“Dark Skies” had possibilities but they were lost before they were identifiable. It made me think of the times I find my way to a room to retrieve something, forget what I meant to do, and try to redeem my pride by looking around the room to grab something—anything—so I would not leave empty handed and empty headed.

Another terribly annoying thing about “Dark Skies” was that the director decided that everybody should speak their lines as if they were at The Masters Golf Tournament. She, who blames the TV for failing to maintain proper volume sometime after her 58th birthday, had trouble understanding the dialogue…but not as much as I. She had the advantage on me, this time, because she speaks fluent 3rd grader while I do not. The little moppet was so difficult to understand I was rooting for the aliens to take him away to teach the “widdle” brat proper enunciation. There we sat, with She forming out the words in my closed hands, I playing the role of Patty Duke to her Anne Bancroft. Part of my problem with understanding the Whisperers was that some parents decided to bring a bucket of their collective genetic cells which insisted on making hooting, goo-gooing and giggling sounds while the people on the screen mumbled. If only I could have muted the inappropriate baggage of squeaks and squawks and boosted the Muttermutter Family.

And then there is the matter of the ending. For close to two hours we are led along…led along…led along…granted mysterious hints—hear big thuds—witness outlandish activities—to allow a little unknown fear grow into a known fear (child abduction) and the tension rises. Then parents (on the screen—not the clueless rudest several rows back) fail to take the wise advice of their 13-year-old son; instead they panic and run about like chickens on cocaine fleeing a starving butcher. A sad ending fades to an epilogue—an interrupted, inaudible sound—and then…bzzzzt…the credits role. What is this? Where’s the well and the Japanese witch and the clip-clop photography—and the little Japanese girl with her panties over her face?  I am so demanding. I expect films to have an end…and decent sound…and a plot…and something more than a scrapbook of scenes from films that have been possessed, anal probed and abducted by the likes of “Dark Skies”.

“Dark Skies” earn one bow tie out of five.