There are -- according to some definitions anyway -- two brands of horror film.
In one type, the monster, alien, ghost, or
demon signifies nothing beyond its own specific and terrifying characteristics
or qualities. Here, a ghost is just…a ghost.
But in the type of horror movie I much
prefer, the monster is actually a placeholder for something more significant,
perhaps even a symbol for some real-life, timely, and societal dread.
Stephen King wrote ably about the latter style
of horror movie production in his book Danse Macabre (1981).
There, he interpreted The Amityville Horror
(1979) -- a movie about a family
grappling with a haunted house -- in terms of the economic fears that home
ownership provokes. The movie wasn’t really
about evil demons or ghosts at all…it was about -- in coded, subconscious terms
-- the bills that money pits can rack up.
Unexpectedly (but refreshingly…) the new
horror film from writer/director Scott Stewart, titled Dark Skies --no relation to the 1996 NBC TV series --
is of the same-style and format as Amityville.
On the surface, the movie concerns normal American family, the Barretts, bedeviled by malicious alien abductors.
But scratch that roiling surface just a
little bit and the intrepid viewer can detect the movie concerns more directly the
existential troubles of our times.
In
particular, the film’s over-stressed Barrett family is on the verge of economic
oblivion in the Great Recession/Obama/Tea Party Era. And the statistics of this epoch don’t look very
good, as the facts reveal.
For instance,
from October 2007 (when Bush was President) to March 2009 (two months into
Obama’s first term) the Dow saw 11.2
trillion dollars in stock-holder losses.
As of 2009, the year President Obama assumed office, unemployment had risen
to 9.8 percent. And foreclosures hit a
record high the very same year, ensnaring a record three million American
households.
We have indeed moved past some of this
horrible history now, in 2013, but the fact remains that even with unemployment now
under 8 percent, even with the Dow on blazing ascent, and even with
foreclosures down 20% from last year, too many families are still struggling to
make ends meet. In the new normal, everyone is jockeying for a foothold on something secure.
This task involves working more than one
job. This task also involves juggling
bills (and alternating payments on some monthly responsibilities). And most trenchantly, this task also involves a lot of anxiety, particularly about
Wall Street, but also about America's place in the world and in the future.
In the 2012 Republican primaries, Governor Rick
Perry of Texas, for instance, worried explicitly about “vulture capitalists” who seemed to be
preying on the Middle Class and gaming the system against them. These so-called vulture capitalists play by
rules the average person doesn’t quite know or understand, and live by their own rules
of conduct too.
In other words, Main
Street America today seems at the mercy of predatory Wall Street America, and the
government -- owned, operated and
de-fanged by Wall Street -- isn’t able to help. It may say its on our side, but is it capable of acting on our behalf?
This amorphous feeling of being preyed upon
by some dark personality -- whether alien or from Wall Street -- is the true subject
matter of Dark Skies.
Or as one
character notes in the film: the future is already written, and all hope is
lost. “The invasion already happened…the
presence of the greys is now a fact of life…like death and taxes.”
“Two possibilities exist... Either we
are alone in the universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. - Arthur
C. Clarke”
The Barrett family is
facing an economic apocalypse. Dad
Daniel (Josh Hamilton) has been out of work for three months straight, and Mom,
Lacy (Keri Russell) is a real estate agent trying to sell foreclosed houses in a
down-market. Bills are stacking-up,
payments are late, and the family is holding on to the American dream by its
finger-nails.
Then, things take a
dramatic turn for the worse.
At night --
every night for a week -- the Barret house
is “breached” by some invisible force that triggers the security system. This force also evades video monitoring, and
acts in a mischievous, disturbing fashion. It seems to be trying to scare the family.
Then, three flocks of birds mysteriously converge on the house, and strike it all at
once, causing a front-yard avian massacre.
As Lacy investigates these events, she learns that these night-time incursions seem to focus on her youngest son, Sammy (Kadan Rockett). The night-time visitors
seem obsessed with him. She and Daniel
eventually go to visit a man named Edward Pollard (J.K. Simmons), who has some
experience with these ominous nocturnal visitors.
He warns them that alien
grays have focused on the Barrett family, and are planning to abduct someone
close to them, likely Sammy. The family must
stick together and fight these aliens with their other son, Jesse (Dakota
Goya).
But this is no easy task: the aliens are above-the-law of both man and nature, and may be
unstoppable in their quest to steal all the family’s tomorrows…
“People think of aliens as these beings invading our planet
in some great cataclysm, destroying monuments, stealing our natural
resources. But it’s not like that at
all. The invasion already happened.”
Dark
Skies. That’s the forecast for the American middle-class moving into an
uncertain future.
Accordingly, Scott
Stewart’s film is dominated by images of Americana. The movie opens near the 4th of
July, and so Old Glory appears fluttering in the breeze in several frames, thus
contextualizing this narrative as an explicitly American
tale.
And what’s the subject of conversation at the July 4th
neighborhood picnic?
Well, neighbors speak of “the Fed” trying to help the
Economy, and the "terrifying" fear of other nations rising to global power. Specifically China and India are name-checked.
What might be interpreted here as xenophobia -- fear of the outsider -- is very important to any reading of the film. Other economies threatening ours are not unlike
the aliens of the film: invisible threats or pressures nonetheless affecting our day-to-day existences. We have always assumed the immortality of American Exceptionalism; that we will remain at the top of the global economy, or at the top of the food chain. But recent events have shaken our faith that this is so, and fear has crept in. What if something malevolent is working against us, and is more powerful than we are?
The Barrett family is under siege by forces like these, and
dealing with very modern stresses. Daniel is out of a job and hasn’t worked for
three months. He can’t seem to find
another job, either. He applies for work
in a steel, colorless office early in the film, and we never see his
interviewer’s face. Similarly, we never
see the faces of the aliens in the film.
They are just one more “force” working against the American dream, and
against the family. In the context of this film, virtually every aspect of modern life -- from job interviews to real estate deals to alien invasion -- imperils the Middle Class.
The entire sub-text of the film is about these invisible but
nonetheless real pressures building on the family.
“He’s
our son, not a cable bill,” Lacy snaps when Jesse needs therapy, but Daniel
says they can’t afford it.
At another
point, we learn that payments on the security system monitoring have “lapsed.”
There is also imagery in the film of a mortgage
past-due notice, and at night, Lacy stays up working in bed with her laptop instead of
accepting her husband’s sexual advances. No time for love, Dr. Jones. "We need this," she desperately asserts of a long-shot real estate closing.
The feeling is indeed of pressure pressing down from all quarters. One shot -- oft repeated -- in the film, transmits this notion perfectly. Stewart’s camera often assumes a high-angle,
bird’s eye view of the suburbia, as if the unseen force is watching every move
that the Barrett family makes.
Again,
the aliens are depicted in Dark Skies as unstoppable, invincible, super-powerful
vultures who prey on humans with impunity, so this conceit of “looking down” upon
Main Street (and humanity) is a crucial aspect of the film’s equation.
In the economic reading of this horror film, the Federal Government's stand-in is likely the local police force. Officers come
to the Barrett house after every incursion by the Greys, but are powerless to
prevent them, and they refuse to acknowledge that something terrible is
happening to a decent family. The police -- like government
in the face of entrenched moneyed interests -- are impotent.
And in terms of the real fear expressed here, it’s one
I’ve written about in regards to many horror films. Specifically, in Dark Skies, the Barretts stand to
lose a child. And “losing a child” in
horror film vernacular is the same as having no future at all, or losing
tomorrow. This is what the middle class
feels today: that all the pressure building on it will ultimately rob families
of their children's future. They won't get in to good schools. They won't find jobs. They'll never move out....
In terms of its horror credentials, Dark Skies is a more effective film
than I imagined it would be, based on most of the reviews I'd read. It very accurately and very cannily reflects today's dreads.
The first glimpse of the Greys is terrifying,
but more than that, writer/director Stewart is skilled in creating a
suffocating mood. Throughout the film,
the Barretts barely have their heads above water, and one wrong move could
bring about financial oblivion. This
feeling of terror lurking beyond the next corner is palpable, and even though the film
is rated PG, the scares are effective.
In part, this may be because -- as was the case with Amityville Horror
all those years ago -- we all have to pay the bills, we all have bad months, and
we all know what happens if we raid the kid’s college fund, put too much debt on our
credits cards, or take out a second mortgage on our homes.
The Greys, invisible and faceless, will surely come to get us...demanding their pound of flesh.