There is nothing better than going into a movie blind, and then you find out that it has many of the hallmarks that you look for in a movie, and that is what happened with me Out of Darkness on Thursday. I went and saw it because it was the shortest of the films that releases this week, and that always works better on week night. I had no expectations for this movie, and when it started and Sony popped up on the screen, I got excited, because if they are willing to put their name on the project, then it cannot be that bad! I say that now, but Madame Web comes out next week, and I think Sony’s name will be on that, and it just cannot be good.
Out of Darkness starts with a group of six people of varying ages thousands of years ago, and they are looking for a place to call home. They land their boat on a new land, and it looks beautiful, but after landing, they continue to struggle to find food, but they have found some carcasses, so they know there is something predatory out there, but also something to eat. At night, they start to hear noises out in the distance, and it sounds like the creature is stalking them.
The young boy gets taken, so now the group is forced to go on the offensive, so the next day, the group tracks the creature into the woods, and it starts to feel claustrophobic, somehow the darkness is already closing in again, and they find a pit filled with sludge and bones, but the boy’s body is not there, but the creature has closed in on them again. What follows is a sequence of carnage and betrayals that kept twisting, but it resulted in only two people being left, and they charge up the mountain for vengeance.
There are two aspects of this movie that stuck out the most. The first is the filming location. This was filmed in Scotland, and it had many stunning visuals like those that made The Green Knight so great. Having great landscapes does make it easier to have a good-looking movie, but framing the landscapes and the way the camera moves also plays a huge role, and this film combined all these aspects in a manner that worked incredibly well. I do not know what it is about a camera being flipped upside and showing the world turned on its head that creates such an unsettling feeling, but it does. The one shot that stuck with me is when the two people were running up the side of a mountain, and the shot was from far away to make them look like small silhouettes. Plus, there was a storm brewing, and it was one of those shots, that just feels like they are a part of an epic, like if myths were real, this is what going into battle would look like. Also, it is not easy to shoot at night, but they did it in a way they created an incredible atmosphere. It felt like anything could be out there.
So the merging of that with the sound design and music created a creepy feel. The sound that the creature made was chilling. There were also the sounds of it scurrying around in the darkness, and it felt so close, but it was so ambiguous on where it was coming from and how big of a creature it was. The background music also helped add to the tension. Music is one of the biggest keys to a good scare, it can start to put you on edge, and then boom they hit you with the scare.
There is one line from Station Eleven, a book and a TV show, that says, “To the monsters, we’re the monsters.” While I was watching this movie, this line kept popping into my head. These people were coming into a new land. Whatever was terrorizing them had lived in that land unimpeded, and now there were people coming in, and there was going to be competition over land and resources, because it seemed baren out there. So when it initially seems like the monster is attacking them, it makes sense. To the creature that was native to the island, the people were the monsters, they were the thing that was new and scary.
They not only proved to be the monsters in this manner, but they also were monsters to each other. There were like five different betrayals that occurred, and each time it was like woah, what are you doing!? I audibly gasped or groaned at least twice. The group started to cannibalize itself, literally and figuratively. It takes team work to take down a monster that lurks in the dark, and taking out your own people just makes it so much harder. As a group, you must be in a circle and on the same page. The more people, the more protection there is, and there is a higher chance the monster will choose to eat them instead of you. That is what friends are for. Then at the end of the movie, they have a chance to slightly right their wrong, but instead they choose destruction yet again.
They did subvert expectations in another way. In movies like this, the men are always the ones that are the heroes, and they are protecting the women and children, but in this instance, when it came down to it. The men acted idiotically; it ended up with them getting killed. The main guy was too busy getting angry to think about how to go about this in an appropriate way, and the other older guy was creepy and gross to women. It was great to see this story take that as the direction.
One weird thing about this prehistoric horror is that it is so hard to tell how old everyone is. When everyone is covered in dirt and has not eaten, so they all look awful, that is the great equalizer in judging people based off their age.
There were two big problems with this movie that will prevent it from reaching The Green Knight or The Northman level of love in my book. The first is that the story never fully draws you in like those other two. Towards the beginning, my attention was not fully dragged into the story, whereas from the start of both other movies, the opening scene is enough to get you invested with the main character and what is going to happen to him. Their narrative tension is just so much better. Also there was not a character in this that I really cared about. It was only 90 minutes, so the viewer is just thrusted in there, and we all fight for survival for a few quick days, and then it is over. It is impressive that they created their own language, and that it was only for a one off 90-minute movie. That is true commitment.
There are a lot of hateful reviews for this movie, and I just do not get that. It looks amazing, it sounds great, and it creates an incredible atmosphere that leads to some solid scares. There was a man in a wheelchair in front of me, and he jumped at least three times, it was awesome! The choices the characters made were awful, and it led to some solid twists. The one big twist kind of sucked though, so that is to this movie’s detriment. The tension was so high when it was unknown what the creature was, but once they decided to show it, it took a large part of the tension away, but despite that choice, the final showdown was still very intense. This might not make it to the top of my list like the movies it reminded me of did, but it will be one of my favorites. I really want to go back and see it a second time. 3.5 stars, which feels low, but I think it is accurate. We need more movies like this! The setting, the era, it all adds up for such a good creative space for horror.
P.S: Is it odd that this movie really made me want to go into the woods at night? I think I am just bored from being in the boot, and that sounds a lot more interesting than hanging out in the gym. It would be nice to get some good old fashion fear adrenaline again.
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