Dans l'ombre du doute

The 'blind person in peril' sub-genre of film-making is actually quite a packed one. It really took off in the 1950s and '60s in Britain with the likes of Patricia Dainton in WITNESS IN THE DARK, although America made one of the best of the genre with Audrey Hepburn's WAIT UNTIL DARK. It comes as little surprise that the 2013 TV movie IN THE DARK can't hope to hold a candle to these earlier, similar films.

The truth is that this is one of the most predictable films I've ever watched. It begins with a poorly-filmed car accident (featuring a cameo from STARSHIP TROOPERS star Patrick Muldoon) and follows up with a newly blind woman struggling to adjust to her surroundings and life. To help her, she's given a carer to assist with her day-to-day life, but all doesn't go according to plan...

The problem I have with these television movies is that the protagonists are always so dim and that's no exception here. Elisabeth Rohm plays woman who's dim beyond belief, who can't work out what's staring her in the face. I trust that nobody in real life would really be as stupid as she acts here, and her stupidity is one reason that it's impossible to sympathise with her plight.

The supporting cast are little better; the actors include a near unrecognisable Shannon Elizabeth (the American PIE films) and Elizabeth Pena (*BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED) and both are poor, although not as poor as Sam Page playing the carer. And, unforgivably, IN THE DARK is an extremely slow film with very little going on apart from lots of obvious and repetitive scenes. It only gets going at the climax, and then it's abruptly all over. It's pretty much a waste of time.