Bad DVD choice of the week: 'Dark Skies'

Given that our entire July 4th holiday weekend was a total washout (seriously, it rained from Wednesday afternoon through Sunday morning, almost non-stop), you would think I at least managed to take in some really solid movies. I'm always talking about some film that I'm dying to see, some hot new blockbuster that's going to set the world on fire. It seems only natural that I'd manage to get my soggy, water-logged self to a theater to see something new over a four-day holiday period, right?

But no, I'm here to tell you that I made a serious misstep: I decided to stay home, stay dry and watch a horror movie, and not a good one like Cabin in the Woods (which is still streaming on Netflix, I can definitely recommend that one). No, I opted for Dark Skies, a sci-fi/horror thriller starring Keri Russell (Felicity! Oh how I loved that show! And The Americans too!), Josh Hamilton and a few other actors whose names I can't remember off hand.

To say this was a bad choice would be a gross understatement. Dark Skies looked super creepy in previews, so I figured hey, if I'm going to get scared, I might as well do it right. It seems I can't do it right. I even ignored the dismal reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, hoping that nearly all the major critics were wrong. After all, Dark Skies was billed as the next big thing by the producers of Insidious (another outstanding horror film, at least the first half of it is great). The critics were spot on with their scathing reviews, unfortunately.

What, exactly, went wrong with Dark Skies? I'd be here all day telling you, I really would. What went right? Well, Keri Russell has nice hair? She does a decent job at looking unnerved by the strange activity in and around her home? She screams really well? Oh, and J.K. Simmons makes an all-too-brief appearance. If you're not sure who I'm talking about, here's his IMDb page. "Ohhhhhhhhhh, that guy, yeah he's awesome." Yeah, not enough of "that guy" at all. His short scene was one of the few that seemed even remotely interesting.

So basically here's the deal with Dark Skies: Strange things start happening around a family's quaint, suburban home. Birds fly into the house en masse, scaring the crap out of the inhabitants (and the neighbors). The wildlife people call to say that somehow, these birds were being drawn to the house by some unknown force (oooh, spooky!). Mom wakes up in the middle of the night to find these bizarre sculptures in the kitchen, made from all sorts of common household items. The youngest son has bad dreams about boogeymen. Sound formulaic enough? I mean how can you screw up such a normal horror movie premise, right? All these things had me just waiting for the big payoff.

What I just said above is one of the biggest problems with Dark Skies: The setup takes forever. Honestly, by the time you start figuring out what's really going on, you feel like you've already seen the whole movie. I'm all for taking the time to build the tension in a horror movie, but in Dark Skies, director Scott Stewart simply goes off the rails with it entirely. I really didn't give a rip why things were happening in the house by the time we got to the big reveal. And no, I won't be telling you the ending, because as always I try really hard to remain spoiler-free. Still: It's pretty lame.

The acting performances in Dark Skies are decent enough, but I just expected a little more from the likes of Keri Russell. She does a fine job looking freaked out and haggard, but she just didn't have decent material. Dear Keri Russell: Stop taking these lame movie roles. Please stick to doing what you do so brilliantly: great TV dramas!

Anyway, if you're super bored and curious, give Dark Skies a shot, but don't say I didn't warn you. Personally, I think it's almost always a bad thing when one begins laughing hysterically during the final climactic scenes of any movie, particularly a horror film.

Here's hoping that the upcoming horror movie The Conjuring offers horror fans something much, much scarier than Dark Skies does.

And if any of you have seen any really solid scary movies lately (new OR older), let me know - I'm kind of in the mood to watch more of them these days.

Photo courtesy of Film Music Reporter and Dork Shelf