Directed by Brothers Strause , Starring Eric Balfour, David Zayas, Donald Faison, Brittany Daniel, Neil Hopkins, Scottie Thompson, Crystal Reed . Horror/Thriller/Sci-Fi. USA, 2010, Approx. 90 minutes.

Released in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray 21st March 2011, RRP£19.99 (DVD), RRP £24.99 (Blu-ray). Cert 15

What would you do if aliens took over the world? Would you go out and fight resistance style or hide in your house and hope they don’t notice you? Yep - I’d hide too and that exactly what our ‘heroes’ do in Skyline.

Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson) are invited for a weekend in LA to enjoy the celebrity lifestyle of childhood friend Terry (Donald Faison). The first evening in LA brings mysterious strange blue beams of lights raining down on the unsuspecting locals. When one of Terry’s other guests is sucked from the apartment by the unidentified Blue beam – the group find themselves desperately trying to not be seen and hiding within the block.

On peering through the window Jarrod and Elaine realise the aliens are definitely not on earth to make friends as they see thousands of Human being harvested like crops and beamed up to the space vessels hovering over the city skyline.

A desperate attempt to escape turns horribly wrong when the group finally encounter the creatures head on. Giant aliens, similar to those in the film ‘Monsters’ are wondering the streets hunting down any humans still to be captured. The escape plan is hideously disrupted when Terry is sucked into the Jaws of a perusing creature. Forced to return inside the apartment, Jarrod and Elaine make their way back to Terry’s Hollywood Crib.

With the ‘beings’ aware of the groups existence – they are forced to move from their own apartment to the other flats in the building. Moving from floor to floor we meet the other frightened residents also in hiding from the creatures.

The US government have one last ditched attempt to fight back, sending in a Task force of US Planes to destroy the ships. The Planes bring down one of the intergalactic vessels, making matters worse when the alien’s fight back despatching their own War ships to put an end to any human attack.

Left with no hope and completely demoralised our hero’s prepare for the certain doom and destruction of the Human race.

Massively criticised on its theatrical release, Skyline offers nothing overly new to the science fiction genre, but is a good solid popcorn flick with some great action scenes, special effects and intense scary moments.

Considering Skyline has a virtually unknown cast, every member is very believable in creating an atmosphere of absolute desperation and hopelessness.

In summery – as SFX, mainstream Sci-Fi flicks go, I’m not too certain why Skyline was so panned by critics?

It’s a simple timeless story of aliens coming to take over the earth and humans scared and trying to fight back. So many films with exactly the same story line have been critically acclaimed in the past, so why not this one too?

The intensity is full on and the special effects are top rate. Over all this is a good movie and deserves a place on the shelf of any mainstream Action/sci-fi fan.

It was never going to win and Oscar, but it’s as good as Independence Day and Cloverfield with an untraditional end to this type of film. Well worth a watch!

DVD & BLU-RAY EXTRAS INCLUDE:
Deleted, Alternate & Extended Scenes
Pre-Visualization
Trailers
Feature & Bonus Audio Commentaries

Nick Gibbs-McNeil.

This web site is owned and published by London FrightFest Limited.
 © London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2011
_____________________________________________