Night Skies

Lately, I've been on sort of an alien movie binge. I've been trying to watch as many real-life alien sort of flicks as I can. Some have been okay, and some have been just plain old weak. And I must say this one definitely belongs in the latter category.

Night Skies is the supposed true story of an alien encounter during the famous Phoenix Lights UFO phenomenon in 1996. Toss in a pretty much useless side-story with a bunch of young lovelies and you have the makings of a pretty weak movie.

How weak is up to you. Right from the get go, for me, the acting and writing, felt like a slap in the face. The back and forth between the young adults was eye-rollingly weak. Night Skies didn't deliver really anything note worthy besides in the special effects department. And that also still felt ScfI Originial-like. It honestly felt like the only real reason they made this movie was because of the gooey stuff you see ALL OVER THE PLACE at the end of the film. "Wow, this stuff is gross, doesn't it remind you of that stuff in Fire in the Sky?" Even though there's a crowd for everything, I still become surprised when people vote a movie like this a 10 and say nothing but good things about it. Maybe they're just overly optimistic people? Maybe I'm just a dude that sees the glass half empty. I think it's a combination of that and probably just not seeing that many flicks.

Night Skies isn't the worst movie in the world, but it's certainly nothing recommendable. I'd really only rec this flick out if there were other people out there who also want to see all the alien abduction movies there is. Lots of bad acting, really bad writing, weak directing, mixed with alright effects and loads of exploding windows, plus a moderately grim finale, you could do worse, but I'd recommend this as a party movie instead as a serious sit-down.

I love movies about ETs and the paranormal. Night Skies was reeeally hard to finish because it was so poorly made. Just when I got past the formula "cookie-cutter" characters and their less than believable actions -- the special effects started in. Oye vey.

This reminds of another Arizona alien movie, Fire in the Sky. It was a very good movie and I wondered how much of it was accurate. After some research, it turned out that the guy who inspired the story for Fire in the Sky had a very different version than what the movie portrayed.

That makes me wonder if there is any semblance of a "true story" that is portrayed in this train wreck of a movie, Night Skies.

Unanswered questions for me once I finally reached the end of this horror story:

1. Why would beings that are sophisticated enough to travel through space/dimensions need to blow out the windows of a vehicle/house to abduct the screaming actors?

2. Why in the hell did the aliens explode a cabin in the woods?

wtf

The movie has an interesting beginning, claiming it's based on a true story. Story, however, either isn't screen-played well, or, some big parts of "the story" were actually missing (or, shall I say too much dramatized). The story is about an event (some light spotting) in USA and some awkward chain of events that a man (Richard) has undergone.

More than half of the movie is NOT about the promised story; it's about a dramatic (!) events where people don't behave dramatic enough and you lose all your concentration. Acting was not reflecting chain of events in the movie and you see people behave in such a strange way as if they forgot about what has happened just a few seconds ago.

It all boils down to this; this screenplay makes the story groundless; I don't know whether it was real, but my impression is simply "waste of time".

The only thing good about this movie was that it was not following a recipe plot, so you never sort of knew what was going to happen next. However, the bad thing is that the director and the screenwriter and the actors also seemed oblivious to what was supposed to happen. In these circumstances it is hard to identify with any of the characters, making the whole point of the film moot.

Bad acting, bad directing, low budget, silly rubbery monsters and so on and so on. Michael Dorn appears in a few seconds at the end and no, not as Worf, but as a policeman.

Bottom line: stay away from it. Whoever says good things about this movie must have money in it.

I do think I have actually watched the 2007 sci-fi horror movie "Night Skies" once before, back in the day. However, I only remember the movie by its title, and thus I opted to sit down and watch it here as 2023 came to an end.

Odd that I have forgotten about the movie, because the storyline was quite enjoyable. Writers Eric Miller and Steve B. Harris put together a script and storyline that combined elements of traditional horror with elements of alien visitors. And it was actually a rather nice blend. The way that the script was written and the way that the narrative unfolded was quite good, especially because the audience are left to wonder where the lines of reality in the movie blur.

The cast ensemble in "Night Skies" was good, and there were some familiar faces on the cast list, with the likes of Jason Connery, Michael Dorn and Gwendoline Yeo.

It should definitely be noted that the alien design in the movie was good. It was a nice approach to the classic 'grey visitors', but they made them appear more menacing. I definitely liked the way that the aliens were portrayed in the movie.

"Night Skies" is a movie that most certainly is well-worth sitting down and spending 85 minutes on watching. I was genuinely and wholeheartedly entertained throughout the course of the movie.

My rating of director Roy Knyrim's 2007 movie "Night Skies" lands on a six out of ten stars.