It Came From The Cineplex: The Darkness

The Darkness was written by Shayne Armostrong and Shane Krause, and directed by Greg McLean.

Armstrong and Krause are Australian writing partners whose previous credits include the Doctor Who spinoff K9, along with a series of TV movies you're unlikely to have ever heard of. 

McLean is an Australian filmmaker (I get the distinct impression that despite the fact it takes place in America, this is an Australian film) who previously directed Wolf Creek and Wolf Creek 2, which were both decent slasher-type movies. As I always say, you can't hit one out of the park every time at bat.

Sigh… another month, another watered-down, PG-13 suburban "horror" film that's about as scary as a basket of kittens. There've been so many of these half-assed horror films in the past ten years or so that I can no longer tell them apart. 

The blandness even extends to the movie's title— The Darkness. I can't imagine a more uninspired name. Originally the film was going to be called 6 Miranda Drive, which is even worse, and tells you absolutely nothing about the content. As dull as The Darkness title is, at least it sounds slightly ominous.

Imagine the Hawaiian vacation episode of The Brady Bunch (in which Bobby steals a tiki idol necklace from a sacred site) crossed with the original Poltergeist, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what this film's like. 

In fact, every frame of this film is inspired by, if not lifted directly from Poltergeist. The writers don't just use it as a rough outline, they slavishly copy it in every possible way. There's a suburban family whose house is plagued by strange happenings. There's a younger child who's the only one who can see or communicate with the spirits. The spirit activity escalates until they begin physically attacking the members of the household. Worst of all, the family ends up calling a professional spiritual medium to rid their house of evil spirits! 

The writers of The Darkness simply swapped out angry corpses for ancient Indian demons, and switched the medium from Caucasian to Hispanic. Other than that they're pretty much the same film.

According to the promotional materials, The Darkness is based on a true story, and I believe it. Yep, there's no doubt in my mind that it's true that this movie is based on a story.

Once again we get another one of those "Produced by" posters. This one proudly proclaims it's from the producers of The Visit, Sinister and Insidious. First of all, that's nothing to brag about. Secondly, does Hollywood actually believe this works? Do they really think the general public is going to look at this poster and say, "Hey, this movie's from the producer of The Visit! That guy produced the hell out of that movie, so this one HAS to be good!"

Lastly, take a good look at that poster. It's supposed to be terrifying (I think), but it looks for all the world like a clueless husband was working on his car, mistakenly grabbed a bedspread instead of a towel and wiped his greasy hands on it.

SPOILERS!

The Plot:
Peter Taylor (played by Kevin Bacon), his wife Bronny (played by Radha Mitchell), his teenaged daughter Stephanie and young son Mikey all go on a vacation to the Grand Canyon. While there, Mikey, who's autistic, wanders off from the campsite and falls into a deep cave. Inside the cave he finds strange markings on the wall, along with five stones arranged on a makeshift altar. The stones are all carved with primitive symbols. Mikey takes them, hides them in his backpack and strolls back to the campsite.

The Taylors return home and it's not long before odd things start happening around their house. The kitchen tap turn on by itself (terrifying!), light bulbs explode (horrifying!) and strange noises emanate from the attic (ghastly!). Mikey says his new imaginary friend "Jenny" is responsible.

As the incidents escalate, the Taylor family begins slowly falling apart. Peter, who once had an affair, begins spending more time at work and flirts with his beautiful young assistant. Bronny, a recovering alcoholic, begins drinking again. Stephanie throws up in a container and hides it under her bed (!), revealing she's bulimic. Mikey's already odd behavior becomes more erratic, as he tries to kill his grandmother's cat.

Bronny takes to the internet to find answers. She finds a Youtube video that helpfully explains everything that's happening. According to the video, the Anasazi Indians believe that thousands of years ago powerful demons they called the Sky People left their dimension and appeared on Earth. They took the forms of a crow, a snake, a coyote, a wolf and a buffalo. The demons were prone to dragging children into their dimension, but were mostly concerned with triggering an apocalyptic event called The Darkness (we have a title!), that would cover the Earth in night, or something. The Anasazi were able to banish the Sky People back to their dimension, and placed five carved rocks in a cave to prevent their return. 

Just then Bronny hears a noise, and discovers Mikey's set the wall of his room on fire (?). Peter, who doesn't buy into all the supernatural guff, is fed up with Mikey and tries to discipline him, but Bronny stops him, saying the fire wasn't his fault.

That night the Taylors have dinner with Peter's boss (played by Paul Reiser) and his wife Wendy (played by Ming-Na Wen). Bronny and Wendy both chat about the supernatural, while the Boss (amazingly, Reiser's character has no name) interrupts and shuts them down.

When the Taylors return home, they find Mikey covered with black, sooty handprints, and blood pours from his mouth. Apparently this is no cause for alarm, as Peter suggests waiting until morning to take him to the hospital. Bronny brings up Peter's affair (is this really the best time for that?), and accuses him of being distant and not noticing anything. He proves he notices plenty by pointing out the bottles of booze she cleverly hid under the couch. Jesus, what is this, Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? Meanwhile Mikey sits in his room, as demonic looking hands come out of his burned wall, indicating it's a portal of some kind.

Stephanie falls asleep and is awakened by a series of black handprints appearing on her legs, arms and neck. Ah, so the Sky People are perverts! Peter finds Mikey in his room, which is covered by handprints on the walls and ceiling. Peter's finally convinced something supernatural is behind the odd occurrences.

He contacts "Boss," who says his own son had some sort of vague supernatural malady a year or two back, and was cured by a couple of spiritual healers. He gives Peter their number.

Peter calls the healers, and Tangina Barrows, er, I mean Teresa Morales and her granddaughter Kat arrive. Teresa speaks only Spanish, so Kat serves as her translator. Bronny tells them about the Sky People, and the healers get to work busting the ghosts. I could make a joke here about a white family hiring a couple of Hispanic women to "clean" their house, but I won't.

Teresa uses metal divining rods to hunt down the demons and chase them back to their own dimension. They clean the downstairs, but when they enter Mikey's room, Teresa says it's where the real evil dwells. As she recites a banishing spell, the unseen, angry demons smash the windows and hurl shards of glass at her. 

As the others are distracted, Mikey walks through the portal in the wall of his room. When Bronny notices Mikey's missing, Peter rushes into the room and the door locks behind him. He sees Mikey on the other side of the portal, standing with the Sky People. They're wearing masks of a crow, snake, coyote, wolf and buffalo. 

Peter sees the carved stones on the floor of Mikey's room, picks them up and leaps through the portal. Unfortunately he's too afraid to place them back into position, which will banish the Sky People. He tells the demons to take him instead of Mikey. So he's too terrified of them to lay some rocks on an altar, but can willingly offer to sacrifice himself. Got it.

Mikey, who's "not afraid" (because of the whole autism thing), picks up the stones and puts them back in place. The Sky People vanish one by one, and Peter and Mikey jump back through the portal as it disappears. Teresa says, "This house is clean!" Wait, wrong movie.

We then see a ridiculously contrived ending scene of the Taylor family having a picnic on a golden sunny day. I guess all their deep-rooted psychological problems are cured!

Thoughts:

• In most suburban horror films, the family in question is plagued by deep-seated psychological problems. In fact it often seems like the sinister occurrences in their home are caused by long-suppressed neuroses finally bubbling to the surface rather than ghosts.

Nowhere is that more true than in The Darkness. Every member of the Taylor family has some sort of mental disorder. Peter's a workaholic and philanderer. Bronny's a recovering alcoholic. Daughter Stephanie is a distant teen with bulimia. Young son Mikey is autistic. 

Jesus, is there any syndrome or malady the writers forgot to trowel onto them? I'm surprised Stephanie didn't run away to join ISIS, or Peter wasn't revealed to be an evil cyborg from the future.

• During the Grand Canyon vacation, Mikey wanders around the sharp rocks and sheer cliff walls. He steps on a weak spot in the ground and falls into a large cave. The way the scene's shot, it looks like he falls at least a hundred feet. After he takes the carved stones from the altar, he casually strolls right out of the cave, and I swear it looks like he exits about five feet from where he fell into the hole. 

How the hell did that happen? Were there stairs in the cave? A really tall ladder? How'd he fall a hundred feet while staying at ground level?

• So five small rocks arranged on a makeshift altar are the only things keeping these super-powerful evil entities from invading our world. Got it.

Good thing no one else ever discovered the cave in the past thousand years. Or that there was never an earthquake that dislodged the rocks.

• Who the hell would ever name a character "Bronny?" Especially these days, when My Little Pony fandom is still going strong? Every time I type her name I can't help but think "Brony."

• Apparently Mikey doesn't go to any kind of school. We see Stephanie come and go to class every day, so obviously the story's taking place during the school year, but Mikey— who looks to be at least ten— stays home every day with Bronny. She doesn't even appear to be homeschooling him. Shouldn't he be in some sort of special class for kids with his condition?

• Who the hell is Jenny? When strange things begin happening in the Taylor house, Mikey blames them on his new imaginary friend, who he calls Jenny. Later on we find out that the "Sky People" are behind all the occurrences.

I refuse to believe that any of these ancient demons from pre-history goes by the name of "Jenny."

Also, at one point Bronny goes grocery shopping, and takes Mikey with her. He begs her for a helium-filled balloon, and she gives in and says yes. He then says that "Jenny" would like one as well, looking at her expectantly. Smash cut to the Taylor home, where we see two balloons floating in Mikey's room.

So apparently the evil, world-conquering Sky People like playing with balloons.

OK, later on we're told that the Sky People like to abduct children, so I suppose it's possible that "Jenny" was one of those kids, and they're using her spirit or something to try and indoctrinate Mikey. I get the feeling I'm putting way more thought into this issue than the screenwriters did though.

• I'm a big fan of actress Ming Na Wen, and have been watching her in movies and TV since the 1980s. It pains me to see her starring in dreck like this. Surely there are better parts for her than derivative, watered-down PG-13 horror films like this one?

• Kevin Bacon and Ming-Na Wen are both 1980s soap opera veterans. Bacon starred as alcoholic teen Tim Werner on The Guiding Light, while Wen played Vietnamese refugee Lien Hughes on As The World Turns.

• Bronny discovers her daughter Stephanie is bulimic. A couple things here:

First of all, every time Steph eats something, she retires to her room where she chastely vomits into a plastic bag and seals it inside a Tupperware container (awesome product placement!). Bronny finds several hundred of these containers under Steph's bed. Jesus Christ! Did it never once occur to this air-headed teen to quietly dump the Tupperware in the trash? Did she really think no one would ever notice the large, festering vomit cemetery under her bed?

Secondly, after her family discovers her condition, they take her to a therapist. And that's the end of that! We see her go in for one session, and the problem is never mentioned again! I'm pretty sure it takes years to get over bulimia. If ever.

Kevin Bacon gets a good look at the script in The Darkness.

• Bronny does a google search, and conveniently finds a YouTube video (with the logo strangely scrubbed off) explaining Everything You've Ever Wanted To Know About The Sky People, But Were Afraid To Ask. Yep, there's nothing more riveting that watching a character in a movie surf the internet!

We then see a montage of the webpages and articles she finds. They look like they contain pertinent information that would be good to know, but they fly by much too fast to for us to read, making me wonder why they bothered with them in the first place.

• I could overlook most of the film's many, many similarities to Poltergeist, except for one— calling in the occult expert to clean the house. They might as well have just taken footage of Tangina Barrons and spliced it directly into The Darkness. It's that blatant. Teresa Morales, the spiritual medium here, does everything but shout, "Cross over, children! All are welcome! GO INTO THE LIGHT!"

• The end of the film is a huge cheat. Peter finds out that Mikey stole the carved stones from the Grand Canyon cave, which released the Sky People from their exile. One he discovered that, I figured he'd get in his car, drive all the way back to the Grand Canyon and replace the stones on the cave altar. Nope!

The Sky People very helpfully open up a portal in the wall of Mikey's room. This allows Peter and Mikey to step through and instantly teleport several hundred miles to the cave where the stones were found. Once inside the cave, Mikey replaces the stones, which banishes the Sky People back to their own dimension.

Why the hell would the Sky People do this? They basically just helped Peter destroy them!

Oddly enough, once the stones are replaced and the spirits vanquished, the portal is considerate enough to stay open long enough for Peter and Mikey to step back through into their home. 

• The final scene of the film, in which the Taylors are picnicking in the sunshine, apparently free of all their problems, was unintentionally hilarious. These people were all at each other's throats earlier, and now they're apparently blissfully free of all their problems. 

Yes, we're told that the Sky People amplify negative emotions and cause people to argue and fight. But the Taylors all seemed like they hated one another before the demons came to live with them. I ain't buying their over the top, 1950s sitcom family act.

The Darkness is a bland mess of a film that's a virtual carbon copy of the original Poltergeist. Unfortunately it proves that stealing from a good film often results in a poor one. Don't bother seeing this one in the theater— stay home and re-watch Poltergeist again. I give it a C-.

It Came From The Cineplex: Poltergeist (2015)

Poltergeist (2015) was written by David Lindsay-Abaire and directed by Gil Kenan.

Both previously worked on CG animated features, which of course makes them the perfect choice for a remake of a horror classic. Lindsay-Abaire wrote the screenplays for Robots and Rise Of The Guardians, while Kenan previously directed Monster House. Perhaps they should stick with what they know. Kenan also directed 2008's box office flop City Of Ember, so you know we're in good hands here.

Why, oh why does Hollywood keep doing this? Why do they keep remaking good movies? A remake of a classic film just seems like a losing proposition. It's unlikely you'll be able to outdo the original, and fans will be poised with their torches and pitchforks just waiting for you to make a wrong move. Wouldn't it make far more sense to remake a bad movie and try to improve it?

This new Poltergeist isn't the worst thing I've ever seen, but it offers absolutely nothing new and you'd be better off hunting down the original. C'mon, guys! You've got to bring something innovative to the table when you remake a picture, otherwise it's just a waste of everyone's time on both sides of the screen.

To make things even worse, we've already had several "virtual" Poltergeist remakes in the past couple of years. Both Insidious (2010) and The Conjuring (2013) feature families moving into a new home, experiencing supernatural disturbances revolving around their children and calling in paranormal experts for help. The expert team in Insidious even consists of an older woman and two younger male assistants, just like in the original Poltergeist. With all these copycat films littering the movie landscape, one has to wonder why the studio would bother with a Poltergeist remake. How many times can we watch a family be scared silly by their haunted house?

The original film was innovative in that it took the standard haunted house story out of the Gothic moors and placed it squarely in the tract homes of the suburbs. Audiences were scared witless because the film took place in a safe and familiar setting— suddenly those rows of identical houses didn't seem so inviting, and that TV in the corner started looking a bit too sinister for its own good. The remake takes place in the exact same setting, so it has no innovations to offer.

The 1982 Poltergeist was produced and co-written by Steven Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper. For decades though fans have questioned who actually directed the film. In recent years many of the cast and crew alike have stated that Spielberg was the de facto director, as he appeared on set for all but three days, armed with extensive storyboards of the entire movie. Others say he served simply as an adviser to Hooper.

Whichever camp you believe, there's no denying that it was a Spielberg film. His fingerprints are all over every scene. The idyllic suburban setting, the bustling household, the cute kids, the lens flares, the extreme camera zooms, the actors staring in abject wonder at something incredible... if that ain't Spielberg I'll eat my hat.

Too bad he didn't serve as an "adviser" on this remake.

Movie buffs have also pointed out that Poltergeist bears a very strong resemblance to the 1962 Twilight Zone episode Little Girl Lost. That  episode doesn't contain any ghosts, but does feature a little girl who falls out of her bed and slips through a portal in her bedroom wall and into another dimension. She's then rescued by her father, who enters the portal (with a rope tied around his waist) and manages to grab her seconds before it closes forever.

Many fans believe there's a "Poltergeist Curse," as several people involved in the film met with early and sometimes violent deaths. Heather O'Rourke, who played Carol Anne, died at the age of 12 during emergency surgery. Dominique Dunne, who plays eldest daughter Dana, was killed at age 22 by her abusive former boyfriend. Lou Perryman, who played Pugsley in the first film (whoever the hell that is), was murdered in 2009.

Some blame this so-called curse on the fact that the production allegedly used real skeletons in the film's climax instead of more expensive plastic ones (why plastic skeletons are more expensive than real ones, I have no idea), which... I guess angered the spectral owners of those bones? Riiiiight.

I call bunk on the whole curse idea. When you're dealing with a group of people as large as a Hollywood film crew it's just a matter of statistics and probability that a few of them are going to suffer untimely deaths.

So far I've not heard any rumblings about the possibility of a new curse striking the cast of the remake. It's definitely not going to do their careers any good, but I doubt it'll cause any of them to actually die.

Lastly, this past weekend I realized there's currently a Mad Max and a Poltegeist movie playing at my local cineplex, and in a couple weeks there'll be another Jurassic Park film released. What year is this?

SPOILERS FOR A REMAKE OF A THIRTY THREE YEAR OLD MOVIE!

The Plot:

Surely you know the story by now. The Bowen family, consisting of husband Eric, wife Amy and children Kendra, Griffin and Madison, moves into a new home in the suburbs. Unexplained events begin to occur, and Madison starts conversing with someone or something through the family's TV set, uttering the now familiar catchphrase, "They're heeeere."

Eric and Amy attend a dinner party and learn that their subdivision was built on the site of an old cemetery, but fortunately the bodies were all moved first. Or were they? Meanwhile back at their home, all hell breaks loose. An undead hand rises from a crack in the garage floor and clutches Kendra's leg. Griffin is grabbed by the old tree outside his room and dragged outside. Madison chases a toy into her closet and passes into an otherworldly void. The Bowens return and manage to rescue the kids, except for Madison.

They then hear Madison's voice emanating from their TV set. Reluctant to call the police, they contact the local college's Paranormal Research Dept. (which of course every school has) for help. These ghostbusters set up equipment in the Bowen's house and determine that the closet is a portal to the afterlife, which for some reason exits in the ceiling of the living room. Dr. Powell, the head of the Paranormal Dept., feels she's in over her head and contacts her ex-husband, Carrigan Burke (played by Jared Harris).

Burke is the host of a cable TV series about haunted houses, and may or may not be a fraud. He investigates the Bowen's home and determines that there are hundreds of angry, restless spirits inside, and they're using Madison to lead them toward the light, which will end their torment. Unfortunately for Madison, if she goes through the light with them, she'll be gone forever. They come up with a plan to string a rope through the two portals so they can enter, grab Madison and exit. While Eric and Amy are arguing over who should perform the rescue, Griffin leaps into the portal and rescues her. Burke announces that the house is now clean.

The Bowens believe the matter is closed, but Madison never led the spirits to the light, and they come back for her with a vengeance. She's grabbed by an unseen force and dragged upstairs. As the family struggles to prevent her from being sucked back into the portal, Burke tells them to flee and jumps into the vortex himself. The Bowens hightail it out of there, as the house is torn apart by a supernatural explosion.

Later the Bowens are seen looking at a new house, but nix the idea when they see it has spacious closets and a tree in the yard. Com-O-Dee! Burke is revealed to have survived, and is now co-hosting his show with Dr. Powell.

Thoughts:

• If nothing else, the film clocks in at a brisk 93 minutes, so it'll be in and out of your life before you have a chance to get sick of it.

• The supernatural action starts happening awfully quickly here, barely waiting for the establishing shots to end. I rewatched the original though, and the same thing happens there. Carol Anne begins communicating with the ghosts around the ten minute mark.

• The cast does the best they can with what they have to work with, especially Sam Rockwell as Eric, the patriarch of the Bowen Clan. He brings a much-needed sense of levity to the early scenes in an effort to make us care what happens to these people.

Jared Harris plays ghost hunter Carrigan Burke, who comes off as a low-rent Mad-Eye Moody (complete with supernatural war wounds) from the Harry Potter films. Unfortunately he's a poor substitute for the diminutive and memorable Tangina Barrens of the original film. 

Burke is supposed to be a no-nonsense, take-charge ghost hunter who's there to save the day. Unfortunately the fact that he's also the host of a cable TV ghost hunter show makes him seem like a charlatan (in my eyes at least). 

• The film seems like it's trying to add a few new elements to the mix, but sadly never really does anything with them. The script tells us that Eric's been downsized from his job at John Deere and is having trouble finding work, while aspiring writer Amy's too busy being a mother to work on her Great American Novel. It's even implied that Eric may be drinking a little too much. Unfortunately all these subplots are all promptly dropped forever once the supernatural shenanigans start.

• Several times in the film we're told that the Bowens are strapped for cash and their new home is a step down for them. It's also located in a less than desirable neighborhood. However, none of this is visible onscreen. It looks like a perfectly acceptable middle class home in a middle class neighborhood.

By the way, if both Eric and Amy are out of work as we're told, how the hell are they able to buy a new house in the first place? Do banks routinely hand out home loans to people who are unemployed? I'm guessing no. No they do not.

• At one point Eric decides to pour himself a little afternoon drink in the kitchen. The ghosts then cause him to hallucinate that his face is melting off. Once he snaps back to normal, he pours the rest of the bottle down the drain. I was very disappointed that he didn't say, "Not another drop!" as he did so.

• Not really a problem, just an observation: In the original film, the parents were seen smoking pot in their bedroom, in a time when such a thing was illegal. Now marijuana is legal in many states, but these parents just get drunk. Has marijuana lost its allure now that it's (mostly) legal?

• The Bowen's youngest daughter is named Madison, because of course she is. She's played by actress Kennedi Clements. Kennedi. With an "i."

I've read that in Germany parents have to submit their child's name to a special board for approval. I'm starting to think they have the right idea.

• Both versions of the film feature creepy clown dolls that come to life and attack the middle child. In the original film I wondered why young Robbie would own such an ugly, unsettling clown doll if he was afraid of it. This new version tries to explain that, by having Griffin find a box of moldy old clown toys in a forgotten attic room.

I'll give them an E for effort, but they still don't explain why anyone in their right mind would manufacture such a hideous toy in the first place. Even if a kid wasn't terrified of clowns, it's still ugly and off-putting. Who'd ever want such a thing?

• The remake offers one (and only one) improvement over the original— this time we actually get to see what's inside the closet portal.

The Bowens fly Griffin's camera-equipped remote control drone into the void, and we see it appears to be a tunnel lined with thousands of writhing, moaning corpses. Cool!

• In the original film, Dianne Freeling's maternal instinct outweighs her fear of the unknown, as she willingly enters the void to rescue her daughter. It's a memorable moment and a perfect example of a mother doing whatever's necessary to rescue her child. Here mother Amy Bowen is robbed of the chance to demonstrate her courage as her son leaps into the void while the adults stand around arguing about it.

I know, I know, I've been ranting that the remake doesn't do enough different, and then when it does change something I complain. But this is an element that really needed to stay the same.

• The biggest goof in the film: the static-filled hi-def TV screen. I know why it's there— the snowy screens were a huge part of the original film. Unfortunately modern TVs don't display static like old-school picture tube sets. When there's nothing on a particular channel, my set simply goes black and displays a "No Signal" message. A snow-filled TV screen is a relic of the past that kids today will never experience.

I suppose we could be generous here and say the ghosts are responsible for the snowy screens. I suppose we could say that, but...

• At the very end of the film, a real estate agent is showing the Bowens a new home. They reject it because it has a number of large closets and a large tree near the house. OK, I get the joke, but if they're gonna reject every house they see based on those criteria, they're gonna have a tough time ahead. Perhaps somewhere out there is a house with absolutely no closet space and a barren, lifeless hellscape of a yard, but I doubt it.

Poltergeist (2015) is, like most remakes, completely unnecessary and has little or nothing new to offer. I'm giving it a rare double score. If you've not seen the original film, this one is a somewhat reasonable facsimile, and I give it a B-. If you've seen the 1982 version, skip this remake. I give it a C.

It Came From The Cineplex: Dark Skies

Take the basic story structure of Poltergeist, sprinkle in a little Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, bake for ninety seven minutes and you'll get something that looks and tastes like Dark Skies.

Directed by Scott Stewart (who directed both Legion and Priest a few years back), Dark Skies follows the Poltergeist template with remarkable fidelity. It is for all intents and purposes a remake, but with aliens instead of ghosts. Virtually every scene has an analog in Poltergeist. Need proof? Here's your proof right here, baby!

• Both films take place in a normal, everyday photogenic subdivision. Idyllic, even.

• Both feature normal, everyday photogenic families.

• Both feature mysterious and supernatural "guests" who talk to the youngest child through technology. In Poltergeist the ghosts communicate through the TV set, in Dark Skies the aliens use walkie-talkies.

• Unexplained events happen in both households, centering around food and the kitchen.

• Both concentrate on the father's career (though in Poltergeist the father is promoted; in Dark Skies he's downsized. Sign of the times, I suppose).

• Both feature scenes of the mother doing housework and inadvertently discovering the youngest child talking to the intruders.

• Both films involve the death of birds (the kids' pet canary Tweety in Poltergeist; three flocks of wild birds in Dark Skies).

• In both movies the supernatural events escalate over time until they become life-threatening.

• Both families call on an "expert" in supernatural phenomena in an effort to rid their homes of the incidents.

• There's an all-out third act assault on both houses by the supernatural forces.    

• Both families end up fleeing their respective homes in the denouements.

As I was saying, it's virtually a remake of Poltergeist.

SPOILERS AHOY!!!

The Plot:

• The Barretts are a normal, everyday photogenic family living in the suburbs. Things take a turn for the weird when various family members begin hearing voices and "losing time"-- finding themselves outside in the middle of the night with no idea how they got there. The events escalate until parents Daniel and Lacy Barrett contact an expert who tells them they've been targeted by Gray Aliens. Said aliens want their youngest son for unknown purposes. Not taking kindly to this bit of news, the Barretts fortify their suburban home in an effort to ward off the space aliens who want their son.

Pros:

• This is a "slow-burn" movie. It takes its old sweet time in telling the story. Some might say this is another word for "dull," but I liked that it built up its tension gradually.

• The two kids were really good actors, which helped sell the outlandish story.

• J.K. Simmons (J. Jonah Jameson from the good Spider-Man movies) is amazing as always. Too bad they couldn't afford him for more than one day's filming.

• If you're looking for a special effects extravaganza, look elsewhere. There's no Close Encounters awe-fest at the end. It's a quiet little film with very few effects, which I think helps rather than hinders it.

Cons:

• The film begins with this Arthur C. Clarke quote: "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying." Whose boneheaded idea was that? I'm assuming the fact that aliens were behind everything was supposed to be a shocking reveal in the film. Fat chance of that when you start things off with that quote! Three seconds in and we already know it's aliens. Might as well grab your coat, gather your belongings and exit the theater.

• It might have been nice to get a little bit better look at the aliens. In every scene in which they appear they're standing in the extreme background, out of focus or in the shadows. You gotta show the monster eventually guys, else why make a monster movie?

A veritable remake of Poltergeist that substitutes aliens for ghosts. I give it a B-.