Close the blinds and stay very quiet if you want to survive in Skyline, a fast-paced sci-fi thriller from the Brothers Strause, the directors of AVPR: Aliens Vs. Predator — Requiem. With a background in digital effects and their own company Hydraulx in Santa Monica, California, siblings Colin and Greg have taken complete control of their second feature, which witnesses an alien invasion and the possible extermination of mankind through the eyes of survivors of the initial onslaught.

Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson) travel to Los Angeles so he can celebrate the birthday of best friend Terry (Donald Faison), who is a huge success on the West Coast and lives in a plush penthouse suite with his girlfriend Candice (Brittany Daniel).

At the end of a raucous party, both couples crash for the night along with Terry’s pal Ray (Neil Hopkins) and assistant Denise (Crystal Reed).

In the early hours of the morning, pulses of bright blue light fall out of the sky and draw people to them like moths to a flame. As Terry and his friends look out of the penthouse windows, they are stunned to see zombie-like residents being sucked up into the sky into the bowels of alien ships that have blotted out the sun.

Glad to be alive, the revellers try to make sense of their horrific predicament, but the end of the world has begun and the mass harvesting of locals is merely the first wave of terror. The worst is yet to come and if Jarred, Elaine and co are going to evade capture and a grisly fate, they will have to make stark choices.

Financing the project with their own money so they didn’t have to make any compromises, the Brothers Strause oversee every element of Skyline. The exception is over the screenplay, by first-time writers Joshua Cordes and Liam O’Donnell, who plunge the audience into the midst of the mayhem.

Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr, who created the creature effects for AVPR: Aliens Vs. Predator — Requiem, work their magic here too. The film is being touted as a mash-up of Cloverfield, Independence Day and War of the Worlds.

A young woman just can’t exorcise the ghosts of the past in Andy Fickman’s romantic comed You Again. Marni (Kristen Bell) has completely forgotten about her miserable high school days and has risen to dizzy heights in the world of public relations. She returns home to attend the wedding of her beloved brother Will (James Wolk) only to discover that his bride-to-be is the very same Joanna (Odette Yustman) who made her formative years such a misery. Except, rather than being the bully Marni remembers so vividly, Joanna has reinvented her as an earthbound angel.

Determined to prevent Will from making the biggest mistake of his life, Marni resolves to expose Joanna as a fraud. Meanwhile, Marni’s mother Gail (Jamie Lee Curtis) has an unresolved high school conflict of her own: Joanna’s aunt Ramona (Sigourney Weaver).