Dark Skies 2013

Andy Webster, New York Times: Those elements are employed with consummate dexterity. Read more

Scott Tobias, AV Club: It's a generic repository of everything that's currently en vogue in commercial horror: a PG-13 haunted-house movie with body possession, lots of digital shocks, and some of the surveillance-cam creep of the Paranormal Activity series. Read more

Clark Collis, Entertainment Weekly: Sci-fi and horror fans know to keep watching the skies - but they won't be missing too much if they decide to skip this. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Film.com: Dark Skies is sort of supernatural, but it's really more super natural....[it's] about the fragility of family, a muted meditation on how precious it is. Read more

Justin Lowe, Hollywood Reporter: There's little to fear from this rather tame genre outing. Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: Really the biggest problem with Dark Skies is that Stewart can never quite decide just what story he is telling or whether to focus on this character or that, instead struggling to string together scares regardless of how they fit together overall. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: It's not that Dark Skies is so awful you need to be warned away from it. It's just that it's so bland you might as well find something better to do. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: Mostly ... it all ends up feeling like a lost, minor episode of "The X-Files:" A little scary, a little silly and catnip for those who want to believe. Read more

Peter Sobczynski, Chicago Sun-Times: Dark Skies is a bore that even the most forgiving genre buffs will find difficult to defend or endure. Read more

Adam Nayman, Globe and Mail: Writer-director Scott Stewart doesn't want to play his hand too early. By the time the movie is over, it's easy to see why he kept his cards close to his chest. He's not really holding anything. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: Dark Skies is an alien-abduction thriller where the biggest acts of appropriation involve the lifting of plots from other - and often better - films. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: A smart little chiller, one that can be read as a metaphor for the American family in crisis during tough economic times or merely as a tense exploration of things that go bump in the night. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: Time and again, Stewart squanders the opportunity to do anything remotely interesting or worthwhile ... Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: A pretty good buildup to OK payoff without any real surprises en route makes Dark Skies feel just enough above average to make one wish it had one memorable spark of conceptual inspiration up its sleeve. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: Stewart has some lofty ambitions, some of which he almost fulfills. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: The movie builds a moderate, if less than monumental, level of spookiness, regardless of your ignorance. It's a workmanlike piece of suspense. Read more