Darkening Sky (2011)

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.

DARKENING SKY is nothing more than an indie science fiction movie which spends its entire running time hanging around in a house with a couple of emo characters. Sure, the subject matter is aliens, but they're only discussed rather than shown. There's no FX, no incident, no plot, and absolutely nothing to see. It's incredibly boring as a result.

I've seen movie with worse production, but The Darkening Sky does have a decidedly low budget feel to it. Eric Rainer is a student who enjoys studying UFOs and people who claim to have been abducted but does not believe in it himself. When his girlfriend disappears he meets Beth (played by the super hot Danielle Keaton)who's boyfriend recently also disappeared.There are some minor spooky parts with a little bit of unexpected events, but overall the movie is predictable and doesn't really bring anything new to the table in this genre.Fans of alien abduction type movies will probably enjoy it regardless.

The movie was interesting from a total psychologist point of view. Having viewed the movie without the premise of knowing what it was truly about, I would have had a field day of DSM-IV diagnosis on this particular movie. Eric seemed to me, schizo type, level 2 and perhaps a bit paranoid delusional as well. Reality for him was a conceptual term at best while the good doctor continuously examined what appeared to be MRI or PET scans of Eric's brain. I still contend that schizophrenia can produce co-morbidity issues related to organic disorders that can lead to the a proficient Serial Killer, living two lives and totally unaware of also being or having a Dual Identity Disorder. Great flick though, he would have also been a great politician as well in today's society with the same disorders.