An Unfortunate Mistake

Rating: 6/10 (30 August 2016)

Great suspense, Goodman doing an excellent job portraying a man with compulsions, preparing the viewer all the way.
Was he as crazy as it appears? Was there a very different, unsavory purpose in bringing the pretty young Michelle to his bunker? His story itself seemed quite implausible. Still, there was the woman begging for help. There was the scratches on the window spelling out exactly that word. Could he have set all of that up? But what about his daughter, and what really happened to her? Lots of questions, and no answers.
And then the blunder.
***SPOILER***
Watch it first, or you won't understand, and even then you may disagree, but the movie was 5 minutes too long. The point of the story was simple. Howard claimed something terrible had happened on earth, Michelle didn't believe him. After several failed attempts, she succeeds in reaching the outdoors. Serene, peaceful, birds seen in their migratory formation. Ripping off her homemade gas mask, Michelle's thoughts can easily be read. "He lied to us! He lied to us!" And then in the distance a noise coming from the sky.
At first it is difficult to tell what we are seeing, but as it approaches, it is clearly not any craft we have ever seen before. Lines are dropped from it, and alien creatures descend, no more than a few feet from the terrified Michelle.
Cut to a closeup, Michelle screaming in horror. Cut to black. Roll the credits.
That is the way it should have ended. Minus 2 stars for certain for the writers' and director's failure to know when to stop, when enough is enough. What a shame.