Keri Russell Stars in Unmissable Alien Invasion Thriller Now Streaming on HBO Max
Chad Collins
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Last year’s No One Will Save You was one of the genre’s greatest delights. Alien horror should be more popular than it is. Often, aliens feature in operatic, science fiction epics or (and I’m partial to these at times) low-budget, found footage offerings. Stream Skinwalker Ranch and thank me later. Sometimes, however, it’s nice to see a mid-budget offering that makes use of its extraterrestrial menaces for something earnestly frightening.
Such was the case with 2013’s Dark Skies, an oft-forgotten Blumhouse release that deserves to be revisited. The great news is that now you can. Dark Skies is currently streaming on Max. Check out a trailer and synopsis below.
Per Max: A suburban family’s tranquil home life quickly unravels when they are targeted by a sinister otherworldly force.
Dark Skies stars Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, and J.K. Simmons in a pre-Oscar showcase of extraterrestrial frenzy and paranoia. It’s considerably more frightening than it was given credit for, managing to both expand on the scope of antecedent alien horror movies while remaining distinctly personal to the core cast as they endure all manner of extraterrestrial sieges and possessions.
Fun fact, too. When Dark Skies was released, I worked at a local AMC theater. We weren’t set to get it, so I called our district manager to ask if we could. Sure, I might have embellished the community interest—it was really just me—but somehow, it worked, and for two weeks, we got to screen Dark Skies to an audience of, like, eleven.
A $17 million domestic gross isn’t bad, but those aren’t the kinds of numbers Blumhouse is used to. They were still getting their feet wet at the time, and no doubt, were Dark Skies released today, I suspect it would be a big hit. Now that it’s streaming on Max, it’s as good a time as any to see what the buzz was about.
What do you think? Do you plan to check out Dark Skies on Max? If you’ve seen it before, what did you think? Let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins!
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