The Darkest Hour is a 2011 science fiction action film directed by Chris Gorak from a screenplay by Jon Spaihts and produced by Timur Bekmambetov. The film stars Emile Hirsch, Max Minghella, Olivia Thirlby, Rachael Taylor, and Joel Kinnaman as a group of people caught in an alien invasion. The film was released on December 25, 2011 in the United States, and grossed $65 million on a $35 million budget. Plot Two Americans, Ben and Sean, travel to Moscow to sell a piece of software. After arriving, they find their business partner, Skyler, has betrayed them by already selling a knockoff application. Disappointed, the pair goes to a nightclub and meets tourists Natalie and Anne. Suddenly, the lights go out and everyone heads outside. There, they witness balls of light fall from the sky and fade away. Invisible entities begin hunting and disintegrating people, generating panic. Ben, Sean, Natalie, Anne, and now Skyler hide in the club's storeroom for seven days. With most of their food gone, the group leaves the club and finds the city full of scorched cars and cinders, but empty of people. While they search for supplies in a police car, an alien appears. They hide as it moves closer, causing the car's lights and siren to turn on. This makes Sean realize that light bulbs and other technologies give the aliens away. The group takes shelter in a shopping mall. Sean and Natalie go to look for clothes and almost run into an alien who cannot see them through a glass wall. Sean theorizes that the aliens can only see their electrical charge, but not through glass or other insulators. The group finds the US embassy gutted and lifeless. A logbook there tells them that the invasion is worldwide. They also discover a radio broadcasting a message in Russian. During their search, Skyler is killed by the aliens. The others see a light in a nearby apartment tower and go to investigate. They find a young woman named Vika and a man named Sergei, an electrical engineer. Sergei has made his apartment into a giant Faraday cage that hides everyone from the aliens. He has also developed a microwave gun that weakens an alien's force field, so that it can actually be seen and killed. Vika and Sergei translate the radio message, which says that a nuclear submarine is waiting in the Moscow River to