History Film / DarkSkies

* CropCircles: While not in the crops, brief glimpses of these appear throughout.

* SleepWalking: Much of the mystery is created by the viewer's and the character's not knowing whether someone is sleepwalking.

* TragicMistake: [[spoiler: They didn't want the younger son, they want to abduct the older one, the one currently experiencing a sexual awakening.]]

* YouHavetoBelieveMe: The mother wants the cop and her husband to believe her. But nobody wants to believe her. :(

* NightmareFuelColoringBook: Sam's drawings either are inspired by the works of Alberto Giacometti or there's something lurking under the bed.

* YouHavetoBelieveMe: The mother wants people to believe her, then the father. Then both. But nobody wants to believe them. :(

* AlienAbduction

* TheGrays
* GenreSavvy: The Mom becomes this via the internet.

* NightmareFuelColoringBook: Sam's drawings.
* NoPeripheralVision: In the same hallway with aliens, the mother sees nothing.

* PoliceAreUseless

* ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight: Obviously.

* YouHavetoBelieveMe: This pops up all the time in the story.

* TheReveal: [[spoiler: They wanted the older son all along!]]

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Are the weird happenings in the initial stages of the film just some animal or are they CGI-generated citizens of the Delta Quadrant.
* MindScrew: [[spoiler: The vision the aliens give the eldest son. Justified as it's intended to confuse and distract him.]]

* RomanticismVersusEnlightenment: Pretty gendered stuff here: The father tries to put the brakes on his wife's suspicions about something supernatural being at work, looks instead for a rational explanation (which leads him to several NotSoStoic moments).

* ShoutOut: To E.T.A. Hoffmann's 19th-century gothic short-story ''TheSandman'', which the older son reads to the younger as a bedtime story. Both stories play with ThroughTheEyesOfMadness and UnreliableNarrator extensively. There's also some parallels in the RomanticismVersusEnlightenment of the mother and father (respectively) to that story, as well as someone in the story being the unwitting subject of a strange and ghastly experiment.

* TheSmartGuy: The expert on alien abductions.

* ThingsThatGoBumpInTheNight
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Characters in the story are at various times presumed to be hallucinating or just plain bonkers (– excuse my French), which provides drive for the story line.
* TragicMistake: [[spoiler: They didn't want the younger son...]]

CatapultNightmare: The mother has one after waking from a dream where she thought that she lost control of her body and harmed herself in public.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane

* AnimalMetaphor: The creepy pet reptile at the beginning. Also a bit of light-hearted {{Foreshadowing}} here early in the game. Mother asks if the younger son's "nursing" it back to health is "compassion or torture," father jokingly replies, "I'll go with the latter."

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Characters in the story are at various times presumed to be hallucinating, which provides drive for the story line.

** The visit to the expert gives them an idea of things to come, not just what the aliens might do, but what kind of social conditions the family can expect.

* ClearTheirName

* MindScrew: [[spoiler: The vision the aliens give the eldest son. Justified as it's intended to confuse and distract him.]]

* SupernaturalProofFather: Until a decisive moment near the end of the story, he staunchly refuses to believe. Once he does, it's Papawolf time.

Dark Skies is a 2013 horror film about a broadly recognizable, American suburban family suddenly beset by strange occurrences: things are stacked in odd and impossible ways, alienesque crop-circle designs appear and hundreds of birds smash into the house, and one of the children reports nightly visits from a strange figure he calls "the sandman." The story is deeply psychological, with much of the dramatic tension coming from the inability of the characters to prove to the world outside the family just what is happening to them.

* NoPeripheralVision: In the same hallway with aliens, the Mother sees NOTHING.
* NotSoStoic: The father attempts on several occasions to be the intellectual and material rock, and protect the family, but it always ends badly.

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Characters in the story are at various times presumed to be hallucinating.

* AllTheorieAreTrue: Pop-culture notions of alien abductions, crop circles and other 'supernatural' occurrences are shown to be true in the context of the story.

* Sleepwalking: Much of the mystery is created by the viewer's and the character's not knowing whether someone is sleepwalking.

* Chessmaster: The aliens have a secret plan that no mere mortal human can know and play mindgames with the family.

* ShoutOut: To ETAHoffmann's 19th-century gothic short-story ''TheSandman'', which the older son reads to the younger as a bedtime story. Both stories play with ThroughTheEyesOfMadness and UnreliableNarrator extensively, and there's also some parallels in the RomanticismVersusEnlightenment of the mother and father, respectively, as well as somebody being the unwitting subject of a ghastly experiment.
* TheSmartGuy: JK Simmons.
* SupernaturalProofFather: Til the last 20 minutes, he refuses to believe. Once he does, it's Papawolf time.

* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness

Dark Skies is a 2013 Horror film about a family suddenly beset by strange occurrences: things are stacked in odd and impossible ways, hundreds of birds smash into the house, and the kids are having visits from 'The Sandman.' Shares a title with a 90's TV show.

* ShoutOut: To ETAHoffmann's 19th-century gothic short-story ''TheSandman'', which the older son reads to the younger as a bedtime story. Both stories play with ThroughTheEyesOfMadness and UnreliableNarrator extensively.

* ShoutOut: To E.T.A. Hoffmann's 19th-century gothic short-story <i>Sandman</i>, which the older son reads to the younger. Both stories have ThroughTheEyesOfMadness in common.

* TragicMistake: [[spoiler: They didn't want the younger son...]]

* EvilDetectingDog: The family buys one specifically for this purpose.

* CreepyChild: The [[spoiler: youngest]] son is this at times.

* TragicMistake: [[spoiler: They didn't want the younger son...]]