***/**** Image A+ Sound A+ Extras B-
starring Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, J.K. Simmons
written and directed by Scott Stewart
click any image to enlarge
by Bill Chambers Dark Skies takes place in
the days leading up to the Fourth of July.
The movie thus promises fireworks–and it delivers, albeit on a modest
scale
befitting its humble suburban milieu. Like Signs,
it's such an insular
take on the alien-visitation genre it could almost be performed on the
stage;
unlike Signs, it's not pious to a fault
(surprisingly, given that
writer-director Scott Stewart previously made Legion
and Priest),
and its lapses in logic aren't as maddening because they're built into
the film's
very ethos, with a Whitley Streiber type (lent unexpected pathos by
a Hunter S. Thompson-dressed J.K. Simmons) opining late in the
proceedings that
aliens are unfathomable to us in the same way that humans are
unfathomable to
lab rats. There are a lot of superficial similarities to Signs,
actually, such as the way the picture uses asthma and walkie-talkie
devices as narrative
keystones and its climactic transformation of the family home into a
fortress.
For that matter, Poltergeist, Paranormal
Activity, and Close
Encounters of the Third Kind are liberally paraphrased as
well; over three
films, Stewart has shown himself to be nothing if not a magpie artist.
The good
news, which would normally be upsetting news, is that the producers of Dark
Skies are Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who seem to rein in
Stewart's other bad
habits, like snail's pacing and a tendency towards arcane mythology.
Third
time's the charm.
|
Lacy and Daniel
Barrett (Keri Russell, whose natural maternalism has finally caught up with her career, and Josh Hamilton)
have two
boys, pre-pubescent Sam (Kadan Rockett) and adolescent Jesse (Dakota
Goyo), and
a nice home with a spacious patio for barbecuing. But look closer, as
the American
Beauty ad copy instructed: Daniel's out of work, fomenting
discord within
his marriage and forcing the family to tighten its purse strings;
Jesse's been straying from the nest, into the uncharted waters of
teenage hedonism; and
their house is less than safe from intruders, despite the
state-of-the-art
burglar alarm they're eventually obliged to turn back on. (I like that
they had
cancelled it before cable.) Things go from bad to apocalyptic when a
flock of
birds dive-bombs the house on a kamikaze mission, Sam and soon the
others start
going into trances and getting nosebleeds, and the kids turn up with
strange bruises
and brandings that, in a conspicuously abandoned thread, raise the
antannae of child-protective services. Only Jesse
manages to maintain relative equilibrium while the strange happenings
accumulate, as he's preoccupied by his budding romance with
Shelly
(Emma Stone clone Annie Thurman), a neighbour girl he's probably known
forever
but only recently just noticed. A scene in which Jesse, stoned on his
first,
clumsy kiss (and maybe a little bit of pot), bikes home under the
moonlight in the
warm night air as The Drums' sweetly sad
"Days" pumps away on
the soundtrack, captures the heady rush of young love with a lyricism I never thought Stewart capable
of.
Indeed, the film can be deliciously cinematic. While perceptual fake-outs are a staple of
millennial
cinema, in Dark Skies–which eventually
surrenders to an unreliable
narrator in assuming the storytelling P.O.V. of our heroes' alien
tormentors,
trickster gods who blur the line between reality and dreaming (Sam
thinks the Sandman himself is stalking him)–the numerous instances of
characters
darting awake begin to take on the absurd flavour and nested complexity
of
vintage Buñuel. And the picture is low-rent enough that it can get away
with not only using the supermarket-tabloid language of ufologists to identify
its
aliens, but also doing as much with sound as it does with CGI, if not more.
(This is
where Stewart, a former effects man, becomes a total filmmaker.) One of
my
favourite moments is a P.O.V. shot that turns expediting jump cuts into
otherworldly temporal blips by amplifying the disturbing soundtrack hum
at the
point of each edit. It's more effective, frankly, than the one or two
awkwardly-rendered shots we get of the "Grays," who are at least used
sparingly.
But the pièce de résistance is a
surprise ending in the proud tradition of Rod Serling: It's
ironic yet, in retrospect, bleakly inevitable. (Major spoilers ahead.)
Simmons's
expert, a survivor of the same circumstances the Barretts are going
through,
warns them that the aliens have earmarked one of their children for
abduction
and that their only hope is to hold onto him with every ounce of physical
and
psychic strength they have. Lacy and Daniel reasonably assume, since
Sam is the
most sensitive to the aliens' presence, that he's the one they're
after,
opening the door for them to snatch Jesse instead. This twist is, I
think, what
has led some to dismiss the film as "conservative," in the sense that
it's really a metaphor for Jesse's parents realizing too late that they've
lost him to the evils of marijuana and sex. I'm giving it the benefit
of the
doubt, though, because Dark Skies resonates for me not as some hysterical cautionary tale,
but as a
requiem for what a wrenching process growing up and apart is for children and
parents
alike. The final images of the film seem to say that Jesse will always
be struggling
to reconnect with his family from the other side. And, well, of course he will.
THE BLU-RAY DISC
Dark Skies was shot in HD with the ARRI Alexa, and Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release presents the film in a gleaming 2.35:1, 1080p
transfer. The crystalline image is
obviously absent of grain, though it's likewise free of noise or other
digital
aberrations, including compression artifacts. Dynamic range and colour
reproduction are excellent–the movie's bluish blacks and slightly
golden cast
combine to stave off a certain SyFy Channel patina that manifests
itself in so
many digitally-shot genre features. The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track provides a
stellar
platform for a mix that uses the discrete soundstage fancifully, while
both the
sound design and Joseph Bishara's largely experimental score work the
lower
registers like nothing since David Lynch. For what it's worth, I wouldn't recommend holding
a drink
or a piece of fine china during any of the set-pieces. Dialogue is
hushed but
never gets lost in the shuffle.
On another track,
find Stewart, joined by producers Jason Blum and Brian
Kavanaugh-Jones and
editor Peter Gvozdas, lording over a breathless full-length commentary devoted to process and, to a lesser extent, the subject of marriage. The yakker
reveals that
the film is part of a new production initiative to make horror movies
on the
cheap, within a Dogme 95-like set of parameters, for theatrical play. We
learn it
was originally conceived to be done found-footage-style, until Blum
decided
that classical storytelling might give Dark Skies
a longer shelf life.
(A producer on the Paranormal Activity
franchise, Blum says he now
knows from experience that in the long run found-footage creates more
problems
than it solves.) Gvozdas is gratifyingly prompted to discuss some of
his
unconventional editing choices, and of course there is the obligatory
fawning
over the ensemble. Thankfully, their praise is justified.
Rounding out the extras is a selection of SD deleted
scenes,
nine in total, with optional commentary from Stewart and, I think,
Gvozdas.
With the glaring exceptions of an elaborate dream sequence and the
(silly)
alternate ending, these are mostly heads or tails clipped from
pre-existing
scenes. Stewart acquits himself well here, saying, for instance, that
they
decided to lose a glimpse of branding on Lacy's body because it was too
significant to not come up again. Oddly, then, in none of these elisions does a social worker pay a visit to the Barretts, who are suspected of abuse in the movie proper by both a neighbour lady and Jesse's doctor. Trailers for Scre4m,
A Haunted House, The Lords of Salem,
and 6 Souls cue up on startup
of the disc, which comes packaged with DVD and Ultraviolet copies of Dark Skies.
