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

In the last moments of this movie i was thinking: "the only thing that could save this film is if it was a troll, a huge joke..."

but it wasn't. Someone seriously thought that this would sell. I don't know if the budget for this film was spent on Barton (the Only recognizable name on the credits) or if this was a troll, and the "Gotch-a" is at the end of the credits and i left too early. either way, whether or not the movie was a joke- it was bad... ...now, One could rant on and on about what was wrong with this movie, but i'll summarize; -It was too dark, you could not see anything but a beam of light coming from a flashlight 30% of the movie. -the acting was horrible. acting is easier said than done, i realize that, but if you aren't good at acting, then why are you in the film? and such... save some money, skip this film, see The Fog....or better yet. save some sanity...don't see either...

Mischa Barton plays a young woman whose parents both die. Aggrieved, she renounces God's existence and challenges him to prove there's something more to life than what we know and see. I guess he does. He seems to send legions of things that bump around her flat to haunt her. Then he gets these goolies to kidnap her new - unbelievable perfect - boyfriend. The moral: never mess with God.

So, poor newly-atheist Mischa must look for her stolen bloke in a haunted apartment block where she reckons he's been imprisoned. Now, most horror films like this are about ninety minutes. This one runs at nearly two hours. And here lies the first problem. Namely, that much of the film is either pretty establishing shots/montages, or Mischa walking slowly around one empty hallway or another - sometimes something jumps out at her, sometimes not.

This film is slow. And how you perceive it will depend on how much you like it. It's the very definition of a 'slow burner.' If you're desperate for something to happen, it may well drive you mad and you'll find that absolutely nothing happens for long periods of the film. However, if you like your horror slow, creepy and tension-building, then you'll probably enjoy this.

Just don't go expecting a roller-coaster of a ride style horror film. Unfortunately, although I like to think I can appreciate a slow-burner or two, I found there was nothing new enough here to warrant watching it again. It falls into that 'seen in all before' category.

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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.

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.