Upon watching this film I learned that certain species of aliens are called greys which is apparently a real term and the premise of this film is that they’ve always been among us.
There are those who believe strongly in the existence of aliens, yet most horror films focus on ghosts or possessions. Needless to say making a horror film where the source of the scares comes from aliens is an interesting premise. I’m not saying that an alien horror film has never been done before, but because it’s not done often, there are a lot of interesting and refreshing ways to bring in the scares.
Unfortunately this film doesn’t quite succeed in doing that. The film is set in an unremarkable suburb of the US and only one family is tormented by the extraterrestrial visitors.
The family is struggling despite initial appearances. Daniel (Josh Hamilton) is between jobs and seems to be the only one aware how behind they are on their mortgage payment, Lacy (Keri Russel) is a realtor who is struggling to sell an outdated house, and older son Jesse (Dakota Goyo) has started to hang out with an older, troublesome boy.
Things only start to get worse when younger son Sammy (Kaden Rockett) starts to experience unexplained phenomena. The family will find a mess in the middle of the night, he’ll black out and start doing things without realizing he’s doing them. The alarms in the house will go off with no signs of break ins and dogs will bark while all this is happening.
Little by little the rest of the family starts experiencing things, too. Lacy also blacks out and doesn’t remember what happened during a six hour block of time. Daniel has found a strange rash behind his ear and three different flocks of birds crash into their house at the same time.
The film thankfully doesn’t rely completely on jump scares. The director tries to build tension and suspense, but ultimately the true scares come from the few jump scares. The initial glimpses of the aliens are creepy. As a horror film though it’s just not scary. The performances from the entire family are great though.
The actors do truly make you believe they are experiencing the things they are. The teen characters are horribly written though and it’s clear the writer thinks that that’s how real teenagers talk. The film has an interesting premise, but ultimately falls flat. It did pass the time, though so in terms of mindless entertainment it does its job.
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