The Sky Has Fallen (2008)
Review by Jude Felton
Indie flick The Sky Has Fallen informs us what is happening by means of playing a radio broadcast over the opening credits. It would appear that some sort of virus, or contagion, or “we’re not really sure what is is” has infected most of the population turning them into semi-zombielike beings. It is a quite effective opening and sets up the rest of the movie quite nicely, giving the viewer just enough information to keep you intrigued, whereas at the same time leaving it open to interpretation. Either way though, it is thoroughly downbeat, cut as it is with scenes of the dead and dying.
With the opening montage out of the way we get to the meat and bones of the story, which follows Rachel, a young lady who has headed to the woods in order to try and escape the carnage that is happening in the cities. This doesn’t appear to be the best course of action as no sooner do we meet her she finds herself in all kinds of trouble. Surrounded by bloodied creatures that have what appear to be gardening tools attached to where their hands should be, things don’t look too good for her.
Before you can shout “a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse” the bullets start flying as a stranger comes to her rescue, popping a few caps in the bloody ghouls. Quite why the stranger, whose name is Lance, bothered helping her though isn’t at first apparent, as he doesn’t want her tagging along with him as she’ll only end up dying like all the others.
Rachel is a persistent woman, though, and Lance eventually lets her join up with him, and his plan to get to the bottom of this outbreak, of which he seems to know more about. You see, not only are there the bloodied zombie-like creatures roaming about, but there are other more sinister beings out there which Lance informs her that are controlling the others. He intends to find their leader and kill it.
First off I will say that for the most part The Sky Has Fallen is a fairly well made movie; it’s nicely shot and looks like a lot of care and attention has gone into the making of it. The director seems to have appreciated the limitations of low-budget filmmaking by setting the majority of the movie in the woods, with only the odd scene filmed elsewhere. Also, during the fight scenes, of which there are several, there is some quite effective editing, especially when the guns are replaced by swordplay. So we get plenty of blood spraying across the screen without fear of any actors losing a limb here or there.
For me though it was in between these more action-orientated scenes that the film failed somewhat. We get a fair amount of time dedicated to conversations between Rachel and Lance as they try to find out more about each other and what they have been through, and herein lies the problem as the conversations come across as stilted and poorly paced with uneasy silences that I can’t imagine are intentional. Questions are repeatedly answered with more questions, and I found this to be thoroughly frustrating. Things do get better later on in the movie, but initially it seemed to me that some tighter pacing could have been employed as well as a little tweaking of the script.
My other gripe, which is really a minor one, is the use of the score. Now, for once a low-budget movie doesn’t rely on using local bands playing forgettable songs, it does in fact have a rather wonderful orchestral score. However, it would have been far more effective if it had been used a little more sparingly, as to me it seemed to play during the entire movie, lessening some of its impact.
All that being said though, The Sky Has Fallen does try to take the post-apocalyptic style of movie and spin a new twist on it. It’s downbeat, gruesome in places and just about creepy enough, especially towards the end. If there was a little more restraint in the music department, some tighter editing and maybe a few more characters to flesh out the story, aside from incidental characters that do appear here, and this could have been a bloody good movie. As it is though I would say it was a fairly decent effort that is worth checking out if you get the chance.
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Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 7:25 am | Filed under Horror Reviews.
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