József Gallai’s Project Skyquake is a found-footage tale that blends sci-fi with religious undertones, centered on a disaster of global proportions—captured entirely through the eyes of a student journalist and her camera.
By the time anyone finds this footage, the world is a vastly different place — dare I say dystopian. A global catastrophe has wiped out Earth’s population down to 900 million people, and the only clue as to what happened boils down to a video produced by university student Cassandra “Cassie” Derekson (Laura Ellen Wilson) and her best friend, both of whom vanished on a trip to Central Europe.
It all begins with Cassie, an exchange student in Hungary, who landed a gig as a campus news reporter. Given the freedom to cover any story, Cassie puts her attention on the recent phenomenon of skyquakes — the deafening, trumpet-like roars booming out of clear skies all over the world with no explanation. She starts chasing down apocalyptic theories and hard science until she finds skyquake investigator Scott Carmichael (Robert LaSardo) and a pattern nobody wants to talk about: every blast in the sky lines up with somebody vanishing off the face of the earth. Skeptical, she compares it to the biblical rapture.
Cassie sets out to uncover what’s happening with the lights and sounds, determined to record everything on tape. She recruits Margo (Laura Saxon), her best friend and closest thing to a sister, and the two head out into the countryside armed with cameras and frequency-detection gear. During the drive, Cassie opens up about her estranged father, who vanished like everyone else near a forest (where they’re headed) years earlier. All she has is the memory of her father and a single photo of the two of them when she was a child. She believes these disappearances can explain what happened to him.
Tom Sizemore appears as Hank in a dimly lit interview scene from Project Skyquake.
“A global catastrophe has wiped out Earth’s population down to 900 million people.”
Out in the wilderness, they finally get what they came for — the sky splits open with a sonic tremor loud enough to rattle the car, and they catch every second of it on tape. But the high doesn’t last. The car’s electronics go out, and a mysterious voice speaks through the stereo, ordering them to turn back.
Project Skyquake is a mystery box film that weaves together sci-fi and religious tones. As a found-footage film, it is even self-aware enough to call out The Blair Witch Project — which, let’s be honest, is exactly what inspired it. This one leans more sci-fi than horror, but don’t let that fool you; there are plenty of creepy moments along the way. What got me most is the premise itself: it takes the biblical rapture and treats it like something that could actually be happening at this moment and then drops it into a world that’s mostly skeptical of the whole notion (which is predicted in the Bible) and where the masses are unaware it’s even underway until it’s too late.
The low-budget approach actually works in the film’s favor. The filmmakers shot it like an actual investigation from a university student’s viewpoint—thorough but amateur, almost like something built for social media. Cameras are always rolling, and conversation and commentary are always running. So much so that Cassie (Laura Ellen Wilson) and Margo (Laura Saxon) forget the camera is even on, and that’s when things get deep. You start to realize the skyquakes are just the backdrop for a more emotional story — the relationship between these two, and Wilson and Saxon tell it beautifully in those unguarded moments and at the end.
For a small-budget film, the special effects are quite impressive — particularly the sky sequences, with their incredible sound design and lighting. The ending effects are something I can’t talk about. There’s also a cult angle buried in here that elevates the creepy Blair Witch factor. Tom Sizemore is one of a few known actors who show up, and the filmmakers use them in a very resourceful indie manner. Take note.
"…For a small-budget film, the special effects are quite impressive."
