What Augustin Sees: DARK SKIES movie review

Dark Skies is a sci-fi and horror hybrid with the story of Daniel Barrett (Josh Hamilton), his wife Lucy (Keri Russell), and their two young sons who are struggling middle class American family. Daniel disappoints his wife with failed job interviews while Lucy does her best to bring in some cash working as an estate agent. But soon, they are starting to have other problems. Strange things start to happen around the house; food scattered on the floor of kitchen, the photographs in the living room being removed from their frames, kitchen furniture forming complex arrangements that cause weird patterns to be projected onto the ceiling and three flocks of birds messily slamming into the house at the same time. At first, most of them seem to be revolving around younger son Sam (Kadan Rockett), who claims that "The Sandman" is visiting him in his dreams and tells him creepy things. The older son (Dakota Goyo) seems somewhat immune to all these mysterious goings-on, but that may be because he’s preoccupied: He’s just at the age where he’s noticing girls, and the soft-core porn he watches while visiting the house of a slightly older pal has put some confused romantic ideas into his head involving a neighborhood cutie (Annie Thurman).When the rest of the family begins to experience the inexplicable trances, seizures, mysterious bloody noses and bruises, they become neighborhood pariahs.

It becomes apparent that the Barretts are the subject of an alien experiment when Lucy loses several hours out of a day. Gathering information from the internet, with the proof of child’s drawing, Lucy still fails to convince Daniel that there extraterrestrial lives visiting them at night. Daniel struggles but installs cameras in the rooms and chooses to believe Lucy based on the playback of the recorded video. Eventually, they come across Edwin Allard (J.K. Simmons) who is found from the internet and he informs them that they are being observed and tormented by aliens who are experimenting with them as a scientist might use a lab rat. "The Greys," according to him have been hiding amongst us for a long time and that their recently escalating aggression suggests that they may be preparing to kidnap one from the family. Assuming that Sam is the ultimate target, the Barretts barricade themselves inside their home for a final standoff in which they attempt to fend off the invaders with shotguns and a guard dog. Perhaps not surprisingly, things do not go quite as planned.

The family is isolated by the trick of The Greys while Jesse have illusions of his mother killed by his father who commit suicide later, his best friend watching porn with his neighborhood, while his younger brother play hid and seek with him which leads him to a corridor. When he wakes up, he found himself far from his family members but close to The Greys. At this point, we realized that the first target kid is not Sam but Jesse. He was seriously sick when he was a baby, dimming of street lights when he cycle on the street at night (the grays are following him), these were the signs to show that the person being observed is Jesse. Three months later, the family move to other house and we can see the family didn’t stop looking for their son based on the pictures of children and the map where they are lost. After that, Lucy bring some toys for Sammy, from a box of Jesse’s belongings, she found drawings which add questions to the loss of her son. The painting of two adults which one of them is pregnant and a kid, and then a kid with a big bunny, and then aliens surrounding a cloud (messy lines) with light at the center, a kid is inside the cloud, and then the grays observing a baby at the last picture. There are many interpretations about the pictures according to the Douban communities.

The first drawing is the Barretts family with Lacy having her second son, Sam, in the womb. The second picture is a drawing of Jesse with another alien. According to Edwind, aliens are classified into the greys, insectoids, and reptilians. The big bunny can be insectoids or reptilians which competes with the greys to conduct experiment using Jesse. Jesse is kidnapped and returned a few times until Sam is born who distract them from Jesse. Another saying is that the man in the second drawing is Lacy (hairstyle same with the previous one), which means that the person being observed is actually Lacy. Proves are she is the one who discover the intruders into the house late night, the flocks of bird flew to her when she is in the house. These are just the possibilities, the fact is all of the people from the family are affected but after a long observation, Jesse is the family member that the greys want to catch the most.

The film takes its time in setting up the Barrett family household, and the insidious invasion of their home is handled subtly and well. The first jump moment doesn’t occur until we’re well over half an hour into the picture, and after that the film builds its tension relentlessly until we get to an ending that obviously isn’t going to be given away here. Serious and humourless, this film builds tension from the beginning to the end and there is not a single moment to relax when the aliens invade the house, except the scene which Jesse cycle on the street after he kissed a girl. At the beginning, we see pictures of peaceful residential area with neighbourhood relaxing in the garden, chatting among themselves, but the music used gives feeling of mystery and also create tension, we won’t be surprise if someone is dead or other accidents happen but the camera turns to the family which is having barbeque in the garden. While the script continually messes with the audience’s head, the score was creepy enough to keep our attention. It gave off an eerie, uncomfortable vibe that has you glued to your seat as you anxiously await what’s behind the corner. Furthermore, the sound effect of the bass makes our hearts tremble and beat faster and the score works very great at creating tension and prepare you to the scary scene that you will see later.

Other than that, Keri Russell did quite good in this movie. The outbreak in the old house, she switches her emotions and facial expressions instantly, her flawless performance added credit to this film.

Since there are a lot of unsolved questions, there will be possibility of second episode.

The ending is also hinting that Jesse is released from the greys. The walkie-talkie is a kid’s toy which is the greys. The possible interpretation is that Jesse is released and he found the walkie-talkie and try to contact with the family. Another interpretation is that, Jesse is not released but trapped in another interspace in the house which he can’t see his family but able to use the walkie-talkie as the media between two spaces.