Night Skies

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.

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".

Probably not a good sign for the film that as I started watching it, about 5-10 minutes in, I realized I had already watched this film maybe 6 or 8 months earlier and remember almost nothing about it.

Using the 1997 Phoenix Lights incident as its setting, it proceeds to go about telling about five pages worth of a story. There's barely anything happening and barely any content. A bunch of jerk teens/young adults are out in an RV, get distracted by the lights, and crash into some guy's car on the road who is also distracted by the road out in the middle of nowhere. Jerk Teen Matt punches the guy, who proceeds to then help them as their friend Joe gets accidentally stabbed in the shoulder by a big knife during the crash.

The implication, as is obvious and always, is aliens involved, both in the light and presumably out in the darkness as well.

For the longest time, nothing really happens. The guy they ran into flirts with one of the jerk teen girls who is into him, he gives his tragic backstory as a POW in Iraq during the Gulf War, and by this time you realize it's been something like half an hour or so into the movie without much of anything happening.

It's truly unfortunate that they didn't have much of a script to do anything with, because for the low low budget they do have, their aliens look amazing and move realistically.

Michael Dorn is also given high billing and only shows up in a tiny cameo at the very end, thoroughly wasted casting.

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.

The story is a bit repetitive, we all have seen alien's movies with plastic monsters and a group of friends whose car breaks in the middle of the nothing... This one isn't different (although it's based on the testimony of lots of witnesses who assure to have seen UFO's).

I think the movie is a cliché of all the first ET's movies but I have to admit that in some moments I was tense and the cameraman did an excellent job... It's a shame that the ending of the movie was so disappointing, but the real thing is we'll never know if the Phoenix lights they swear to have seen where actually aliens... Other alien movie to watch at midnight.