THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2013
PAGE 7A
MOVIES
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N/KANSAN crowd of
--series of increasingly aggressive bump-in-the-night shenanigans. You know the drill: geometrically stacked furniture, mysterious power outages and, my enduring favorite, the soundtrack-assisted spooky face at the window gag.
'Dark Skies' a moderately creepy close encounter
LANDON MCDONALD
lmcdonald@kansan.com
"Dark Skies" is the kind of movie Sunday matinees were made for, a modestly diverting sci-fi horror hybrid whose surfeit of ambition and shrewd sense of pacing are sadly undermined by the constraints of a limited budget. Director Scott Stewart desperately wants his film to combine the fraught family dynamics of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" with the creeping culde-sac angst of "Poltergeist," yet his reach consistently exceeds his grasp when it comes to closing the deal.
Lacy (Keri Russell) discovers her family is being manipulated by otherworldly forces in writer-director Scott Stewart's "Dark Skies."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The film opens in a quiet suburban neighborhood, home to Daniel (Josh Hamilton) and Lacy
(Keri Russell), an ex-yuppie couple struggling with financial setbacks while Daniel looks for a new job after being unceremoniously laid off by his architecture firm. They're also worried about their oldest son Jesse (Dakota Goyo), who's been hanging around the neighborhood pothead (L.J. Benet) in an effort to escape his cloying younger brother Sammy (Kadan Rockett). Sammy, meanwhile, has an extremely good reason for not wanting to be left alone: The poor kid is being traumatized by nightly visits from a sinister figure he calls the Sandman.
Predictably, no one believes little Sammy until the Sandman makes his presence known through a
All this paranormal activity seems frustratingly familiar, at least until a scene where three separate flocks of birds plummet from the sky in unison, slamming through windows like avian kamikaze pilots and coating the outside of the family's home with splayed, feathery corpses. It's during this scene that "Dark Skies" first announces its intention to become more than just another run-of-the-mill shocker, a
feat it comes very close to actually accomplishing.
The rest of the film benefits from its use of body horror, as each family member gradually loses control of their faculties, lapsing into fugue states that culminate in frightening acts of self-destruction. Desperate for answers, Daniel and Lacy turn to Pollard (J.K. Simmons), the town's resident conspiracy theorist, who matter-of-fact informs them that their family has been targeted by the Greys, an interstellar race that studies humanity with all the passion of a scientist dissecting a plague rat. Simmons, one of our most invaluable character actors, plays his big scene for all it's worth,
adding a sense of self-resigned dread to the film's final act.
One of the pleasant surprises of "Dark Skies" is the fact that its actors don't seem to regard themselves as too good for the material. The result is a film that often feels less like an outright horror movie and more like a domestic drama organically interlaced with moments of genuine shock and terror. Russell, an actress who first came to my attention as the endearing pie artisan in "Waitress," brings credible maternal rage to her role as Lacy, especially during a scene where she thinks Daniel has been the one abusing their children.
"Dark Skies" marks a quantum
leap in quality for Stewart, the longtime visual effects coordinator whose only previous credits as a director were for a pair of post-apocalyptic clunkers called "Legion" and "Priest 3D." Neither of those films had even an ounce of the craft and dexterity on display here. Hopefully he'll continue to improve with his next effort, a forthcoming episode of the Syfy alien invasion series "Defiance."
Hey, at the very least, he'll know the territory.
Edited by Hayley Jozwiak
SCHMIDT HAPPENS
Students have seen three "snow jays" in the past week.
ROYALTY
Queen of Amsterdam to abdicate, son to reign
AMSTERDAM — The Dutch capital is known for boozy stag nights and pot-smoking tourists. But for what could be the nation's party of the decade — the abdication of Queen Beatrix and accession to the throne of her son Willem-Alexander — Amsterdam wants to keep things low key.
Mayor Eberhard van der Laan said Wednesday he "wants a party, but at the same time sober" for the April 30 inauguration.
The day in Amsterdam will start with Beatrix signing abdication papers in the royal palace on central Dam Square. The inauguration of Willem-Alexander will then take place next door in the 15th century New Church.
"If you want to get a really good view, maybe the best place is watching on television," he said.
Van der Laan is even seeking sponsors to help pick up the estimated £7 million ($9 million) tab for the royal bash.
He's not suggesting alcohol-free festivities, but he wants to keep the cost in check as the nation tightens its belt to recover from an economic buffeting caused by the European debt crisis.
In the early evening, the new King Willem-Alexander and his Argentine-born wife Maxima will take a boat trip around the city's lj waterway.
And in an attempt to prevent the capital clogging up with visitors keen to get a glimpse of their outgoing queen and new king. Van der Laan had some advice about the best vantage point.