I Will Follow You Into the Dark

Into The Dark (2012) sees Sophia Monet (Mischa Barton) experience a range of inexplicable and increasingly disturbing occurrences, following the death of her father.

Originally titled I Will Follow You Into The Dark (named after a Death Cab For Cutie track), Into The Dark is a romance, come supernatural thriller, which contains some interesting ideas and a few key scares.

Sofia sits by the bedside of her dying father, the last of her surviving parents. He is conscious and articulate; vocalizing his difficulties in accepting the illness which is rapidly taking control of him. He urges her to find love, telling her that she will not be complete without it. More significantly, he shows doubts with regard to his religious faith, stating "This may be all we really have." This statement unnerves Sofia, who is taken aback at such a claim being made by a man with whom she has associated the church her entire life.

A staunch atheist, Sofia echoes her father's doubts at a eulogy for him, displaying no great love for religion, nor any respect for the crowd that have gathered to pay their respects. "There are no ghosts, or demons, or loved ones waiting for us on the other side." he assuredly states. For those of us familiar with haunting movies, we all know that taunting what may or may not lurk beyond our perception is never a wise move. Needless to say, it doesn't take long before those spirits come a knocking.

A photographer, and visual artist (an oddly common profession in these films), Sofia stays up working late on her intricate time capture pieces. She remains sullen and morose as a friend attempts to coax her out. Worrying about her own health, she visits her doctor and, on her way home, (literally) bumps into Adam Hunt (Ryan Eggold: 90210), who is on his way to a tour of a haunted asylum. She joins him and the two form a flirtatious relationship. Whilst their excursion to the asylum is uneventful, however, the same can't be said for Sofia's apartment, which begins to take on strange and new forms, culminating in Adam's disappearance.

Despite the presence of two leads who are more associated with sunny teen dramas than genre features, Barton and Eggold hold their own throughout. There are scenes which create an unsettling mystique, such as when Sofia is pinned down to her by an invisible force in the middle of the night. Writer / Director Mark Edwin Robinson shows great potential within the genre, and it would be interesting to see if he continues his foray into genre territory.6.5/10

I usually try to avoid movies where the writer and director are the same person. There's a reason for this - and this film is a prime example. You NEED that second opinion - there are long, boring scenes that no competent director would have left intact. The basic story could have been done better, but there was so little development other than artsy montages. The production values were actually pretty good, but the story was weak and the plot incoherent. I think the scenes were not chronological - but it was not obvious if they were flashbacks, dreams, or what. The acting wasn't bad either, but without character development I just didn't care about these people.

Mischa Barton was considered a rising star after her TV show "The OC" but ran into some personal issues in 2007 that derailed her. She has some good film credits, a stage background and a pretty face, but after seeing "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," I'm predicting a so-so career. Or maybe it was the director or the script.

"I Will Follow You Into the Dark" is about a young woman, Sophia, who loses both her parents within six months of one another. Her father was a minister, and right before he dies, he tells her that he's decided that there is no life after death. When she speaks at her father's church, she repeats this, tells the congregation she has come to the same conclusion, and challenges God to prove her wrong.

Bizarre little things begin to happen to her, but one day she meets a funny, charming young man, Adam (Ryan Eggold). She's afraid of losing anyone again, so she resists him, but they wind up falling in love. One day Adam disappears, apparently into this haunted building, and Sophia is determined to get him out.

My biggest problem with this movie is that it was photographed in the dark and I couldn't see anything for a large portion of it. My second problem was the story didn't make a lot of sense to me. There's a famous building that's haunted. People have disappeared from there. There are no stairs. So why would anyone live there? Why does Adam live there? Who would live there? That being said, the last 30-40 minutes are scary and made me nervous. The acting throughout was only okay. I thought the script was bad and the photography worse. As far as the romance, it wasn't developed enough so that anyone cared.

A waste.

A beautiful story that will touch every soul that sees it! Shot in a mixed genre of supernatural and romance (Ghosts meets Sixth Sense) the film dwells on the undeniable and universal theme of love where that starts and ends and the Afterlife. It's a brave film that takes big chances with enormous topics and it's meant to evoke a response and conversation-which it certainly did for me and my friend- we talked about the film for two hours afterward. It's a film you have to see more than once and highly recommend it to you.

Hollywood has narrowed it view of films to be within a politically, ideologically and New Age correctness and those films outside its parameters are ostracized. This film will touch you. Kudos!

I can honestly say my expectations were set too high for this film. I was expecting a supernatural love story and instead I got a big mess of a film, with a plot so vague I hardly know what to make of it.

The film starts off promising with a present to past reflection leading up to the current events. No doubt this tactic was to keep the audiences' attention to the end of this film. I feel without it all interest would have been lost, because there is nothing within the first 20 minutes to indicate anything supernatural about this film otherwise. That said, there isn't too much of anything ghostly until the last 40 minutes or so of this film.

The love story isn't strong enough either to make an impact on the viewer. The love story never really develops and the main story focuses more on the main protagonist dealing with some eerie events which begin to plague this young woman following a eulogy challenging anything supernatural to prove to her there is something beyond death. These events are what lead her to find refuge and love with a man she basically just bumped in to.

Into the Dark has a few things going for it, a talented cast, and a successful atmospheric tone. The only weakness is the screenplay itself; it is much too ambiguous for my liking and there is never a clear explanation for anything. Excluding our lead, all of the other characters are underdeveloped and certain events occur to all of them that just leave you scratching your head asking "what was the point of that? ".

I recommend this film only to those who are willing to ignore a weak screenplay, and are looking for a mindless supernatural romance film. Into the Dark runs roughly 110 minutes, and does have a bit of everything, but the film just can't seem to keep it's focus on any one thing.