It’s a misnomer. There is little but dark in Out of Darkness. This is an atmosphere film, like The Blair Witch Project, except not as good. A poor man’s Blair Witch Project, if you will. Maybe The Blair Witch Apprentice.
Except Out of Darkness is set 45,000 years ago … so L’il Blair Witch? Blair Witchette? Hard to say exactly.
It is winter in the new world and, sadly, the NFL hasn’t been invented yet, so starving prehistorians can’t hope for a tailgate. Why these guys don’t even seem interested in making America great in the first place. WTF? To be fair, we might not be in America. All we know is this sextet of blended family broke off for a New World where there ain’t no food.
The group is led by Adem (Chuku Modu – seriously, why didn’t you just go with this as hi
s prehistoric name?), who has all the tact of a Republican troll and is finally being called on his lack of vision. There’s trouble in this new paradise. Of course, everything is dark and cold, which is easy to sense when you look beyond the pristine pelts these guys are wearing. And the prevailing sense is anxiety as things are literally going bump in the night.
During one of the “What’s going on?” caveman campfire symposiums, Adem’s tween son Heron (Luna Mwezi) is abducted in the night. Animal? Human? Sorcery? Who knows? The gang decides “Demon” because of the high-pitched screams they keep hearing.
I will say no more, cuz I’ve already, sadly, described half the film, believe it or not. Look, fast times in the Pleistocene didn’t involve Grand Theft Auto, ya dig?
Out of Darkness deliberately channeled lighting problems in order to make a moody film moodier. The flip side of that coin is that it is not always easy to tell what’s going on … like, ever. Hence, I think it’s safe to say the director wanted to create an atmosphere of unknown dread far more than wanting to, you know, tell a story. The result is moody chaos, not unlike the worst of Blair Witch, and rarely descriptive of a winning film. I can see why it took years for this film to get a wide release. Keeping it in the can was the proper thing to do.
A set of prehistoric cross sections
Marks an atmosphere of nervous directions
Not sure who they are
These ancestors? Sub-par
They’re all scared of their own reflections
Rated R, 88 Minutes
Director: Andrew Cumming
Writer: Ruth Greenberg, Andrew Cumming, Oliver Kassman
Genre: What happens when art students get real funding
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Atmosphere junkies
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: “That was it? Seriously?!”
