Darkening Sky

It would be interesting to know how many UFO Alien encounters have been recorded by people from the US compared to the rest of the world. Especially scary stuff where aliens are sadistic & torture & terrify. I actually think fear is constantly in the culture of the US & probably goes back to its foundation in violence & slavery. The massive gun ownership of today. All the other movies & tv shows focused on violence, serial killers. The US is right out in front on all that stuff. To me this film is more of the same. Scary and not really enjoyable. This constant story that danger is out there & you are vulnerable gets tiring & does not serve humanity. I fast forwarded through most of this movie. I am tired of this dangerous alien idea. It is negative & just creates a state of caution & fear. Give me Close Encounters or ET. Now that's good cinema.

Let me start off by saying I have seen many awful movies on this subject. This one was pretty good and deserved a better rating. It held my attention, piqued my interest, and had an interesting twist at the end.

Is it about an alien abduction? Eric Rainer seems to think so. He has flashbacks of strange events which start off when he was a little boy, and have haunted him throughout his life. He's been collecting 'evidence' to try and put the pieces of this mystery together. His girlfriend Cindy thinks it is nonsense and is ready to leave him, until the night she disappears.

Eric hooks up with the new neighbor's niece, Beth, who is also looking for her BF who mysteriously disappeared; and together they try to find out the truth about the aliens.

I don't want to give too much away, so I'll stop here. Watch and enjoy the movie, so we can discuss the ending on the boards......

A combination of science fiction and supernatural ideas. Alien abduction versus dreams. The gorgeous actress Danielle Keaton reminds me so much of the character, Death in The Sandman comic books written by Neil Gaiman. As a matter of fact her character name in the movie is, Beth. Same exact look and hairstyle.

I'm a complete and utter sucker for these types of movies which (without delving into spoilers) not only play with a paranormal/supernatural concept in such a way as to be explained by something mundane, but also leave the mystery intact by not fully explaining everything to us, and framing the story in such a way that it could easily be either one or the other.

This film has a bit of a goofy start, very plainly obviously low budget and some of the acting drops to some questionable quality. This is not the major problem, but the style of the film doesn't do much to try to overcome this low-budget feel, and so a lot depends on the viewer being able to latch on to the characters, Eric and Beth, to navigate them through the early parts of the film which play coy with the concept ---- Eric is studying "modern mythology" and leans heavily towards being a skeptic with regards to alien abductions, and has to be dragged into that realm of possibility in more and more convenient ways.

The film has something of a twist ending, but the best part about it is that the twist ending isn't something that comes out of seemingly nowhere or requires you to have been taking notes all throughout the film; the inevitability of it is very slowly and gradually brought up all throughout the last 30-40 minutes of it.

Even the most casual of viewer can start to pick upon the idea that a whole lot of the conflict and conversation, even down to mundane events like Eric's former professor paying him a visit the day after a call in which he expressed interest in returning to school to work on his doctorate, starts to become more and more easily ascribed to paranoia rather than aliens.

and yet when the ending hits, it does so in a way which does not nail down one resolution over another, but instead escalates the conflict in a much more complicated way, in which it becomes even less clear what the truth really is, not because the case for either explanation is flimsy, but because the seed of doubt can completely break down either one.

This is a very low budget psychological sci-fi drama & it's filmed in a raw almost documentary way & it works for the weird style of film this is at one point it's like a Horror movie & at times it's like a drama about lost lonely troubled people especially Rider Strongs character he's very lost & troubled & yet again another EXCELLENT performance by Rider who is a fantastic actor who seems to be constantly dismissed & underrated? Maybe it's because he's a regular in the Horror genre like Cabin Fever (2002),Borderland (2007),Tooth & Nail (2007) & Death Valley (2004) so he is definitely a Horror favourite but that doesn't mean he's not one hell of an actor!!! Watch the terrifying true life Crime Horror Borderland (2007) to see just how BRILLIANT Rider Strong is as an actor!!! Anyway back to this movie yes it's very low budget but it's a good moody film with a great performance by Rider. Can't say too much about the plot or story just let it unfold & wait for a surprising end!!!