I'm pretty sure that's what happened with Dark Skies.
Writer/Director Scott Stewart knew what kind of suspenseful thriller he wanted to make. He knew how he wanted it to look, how he wanted to layer the suspense, build the tension, create smokescreens to keep you guessing, use the children to add to the horror vibe - he knew all that. I'm sure of it.
It's just that somewhere after the ideas left his brain.... well, you can guess the rest.
The story itself isn't bad. Something is causing things to happen in the family home - first it's food out of the fridge, then it's a lovely sculpture using just about every utensil and piece of crockery in the kitchen, then the family pictures go AWOL - all good, harmless stuff. And the police can't explain it, nor can the man from the security alarm company, so it's all a bit of a mystery.
So far, so average. Nothing happens to make you think 'wow', but it's harmless tosh. Keri Russel and Josh Hamilton do a passable job of flummoxed parents (I suspect they're wondering why they're married with kids, as they don't have any chemistry whatsoever) while Dakota Doyo and Kadan Rockett out-perform the grown-ups as the children caught up in the hoo-ha. Granted, it's not tricky, but they still manage it, so kudos to them.
It's once we've set up the fact that stuff is happening that things start to go wonky. We've had the shots showing life carrying on as normal in suburbia, we've got the moody weird stuff, we've got the police in - it's all standard. Sadly, the parents decide they have to solve this.
Only they can't agree on what they believe. Which causes tension. And dad's lost his job, so there's tension. And mum can't flog the one house she's got to sell, so there's tension. And dad has lied about the fact he knew he hadn't got that new job, so there's tension. And the neighbours are looking at them funny after those birds bombarded the house, so there's tension.
Sadly, all this tension fails to transfer itself to either the plot or the actors.
The dialogue is terrible, the acting is stilted, and once the big reveal happens you're past caring and laughing seems to be the only natural response. And not because it's funny. It just saves you feeling angry that you paid to be patronised like this.
To be fair, Keri is a good actress (or at least she was in Waitress) and while Josh is no Olivier he's not terrible, so the problem must lie elsewhere. It couldn't be Stewart, could it? Not the man who gave us Legion? Oh, right, yeah...
The biggest problem this film has is that Stewart clearly likes horrors and thrillers. He's clearly seen a few. As a result, he knows what you should do to make one of these films. He knows what the pointers are, he knows what the shots should be, he knows what the look of the film should be - but he doesn't know why. He doesn't understand what it is that makes those things come together. He's got the ingredients, he just hasn't got the recipe.
The whole thing gets summed up when J. K. Simmons turns up (I'm not going to say what his character's role is, because someone will actually want to see this film, and I don't want to be the one spoiling their fun. Stewart can do that). Now I love this guy, up to now I'm pretty sure I've never seen him in a bad film, or certainly never put in a bad performance. You can bank on him, he'll deliver. Point him in the right direction and he'll do the job. And do it well.
But not here.
From the minute he shambles on to the screen he looks embarrassed to be there, with each line delivered he's struggling to hide the fact he can't believe he has to utter such tosh. It's almost funny to watch.
Away from all this, though, I have other niggles. First, if money is so tight (and it is, they've cancelled the contract with the security alarm company), how come dad manages to stump up for an eight-camera security system? And when they decide to get a vicious dog, how do we know it's going to be vicious? The snarling? The slavering? The barking? Nope. It says so on the little card on the pen. Because animal shelters do that.
Somewhere in here, there is probably a good film, a quick rewrite and the dialogue can be sharpened up. From there, a different director and this could actually fly. Instead, it lands like a flock of starlings hitting a house.
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