Skyline Review Thread (Spoilers)

[Foggy]

The first footage of this showed at SDCC, now first of lets get the first thing straight, this is from the Directors of AvP:R, but I've got a feeling this could be good.

The first footage ever seen of the sci-fi thriller Skyline debuted this morning in Hall H at Comic-Con. The makers of the film, the Brothers Strause (Alien vs. Predator: Requiem), told the audience that not even the studio has seen this stuff yet. And it pretty much rocked the house.

The brothers explained that the film first came about when they were talking about how hard it is to put a movie together in Hollywood. This was right around the time that Paranormal Activity debuted, and the pair decided to make their own movie "in their house" just like that hit. But the footage that they screened today was a far cry from any low-budget horror flick.

The trailer begins as we meet Donald Faison (Scrubs), Eric Balfour (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), David Zayas (Dexter) and Scottie Thompson (Star Trek), all residents of Los Angeles living their ordinary lives. But one night, creepy blue lights begin to drop from the sky and before you know it the city is under siege from an alien threat that seems part Cloverfield monster, part District 9, and part organic-tech.

Aside from the unnatural-looking giant spaceships that are dropping out of the sky, huge beings are also spotted briefly. A giant foot steps on a car. Jets are deployed to (fruitlessly, it seems) battle the threat in the sky. A fighter plane crashes to the earth in a flash of fire, tumbling directly towards our heroes… and the trailer ends.

The filmmakers pointed out that they did in fact make the film on their own with no outside studio input, so if it fails to be any good we can blame "nobody but them." Of course, the fact that the brothers own the visual-effects company Hydraulx also helped elevate the project above Paranormal levels -- they've done effects work for pictures like Avatar, Iron Man 2, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and 300.

As far as the creature design, the brothers said that they didn't want to go the mechanical route. Also, they wanted "Transformers-size" aliens. "The whole idea was we didn't want to do anything with metal parts," they said. "We wanted it to be organic."

The second bit screened was an actual clip from the film. Faison said it took place early in the shooting schedule, and laughed that he was getting used to his newfound action-star mode that day. He and Balfour are on the roof of a high-rise, with the expanse of the L.A. skyline before them, as the sky suddenly turns grey and overcast. And then the lights begin to descend throughout the city, seemingly digging into the Earth's surface and sucking matter and debris of some type into the sky. Soon, multiple alien spaceships descend from the clouds, their massive maws sucking up what we realize now is not debris, but people -- hundreds and hundreds of them. The blue lights approach the pair, and they struggle to get back into the building and off the roof. As they do, another character bursts out of the roof door and is hit by the light -- and her skin immediately starts to burn or transform in some way, overcome by the light. The guys throw her back through the door and dive in themselves… and the clip ends.

The actors stressed that there were no trailers or other kind of comfy benefits to this shoot. Instead, they sat around together in "some dude's apartment" when they were between takes. But this low-budget environment fueled their desire to really kick ass with the film.

From what we saw on screen today, it seems that they did. Skyline is scheduled for release in December.

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