Out of Darkness

One sentence summary: After embarking on a long voyage, a tribe of ancient humans must navigate a foreign land to find shelter while being hunted by unknown adversaries at night.

The idea for which this film's plot was formulated had some interesting potential. The setting was expansive, the practical effects were outstanding, and the acting was mostly admirable, but the progression of the story led to an ending that left a sour taste in my mouth, to say the least. The core conflict of morality versus survival is certainly a well explored topic, however when portrayed correctly, it still packs a punch. With another rewrite and some fine-tuning of the script, Out of Darkness could've achieved something great. But as it stands, I'll mostly likely look back on this film as something of a missed opportunity.

45,000 years ago, a group of people desperately try to evade a malevolent force, they must hone their survival skills to stay alive.

I watched this at The Odeon, as part of the Screen Unseen releases, I'd like to rewatch again at home, just to try and understand it a little better.

Billed to me as a horror movie, and whilst I'd say there are horror elements, please don't go expecting a horror movie, if you do, you'll be disappointed.

Whilst I wouldn't say it's my type of film, there are several positives I took away. The cinematography is quite something, it looks amazing, and the actors do a grand job, consider the language they're using, and there is a degree of tension and expectation. The music is good too, very 80's.

Sadly it just go anywhere, and the pacing for me was the major frustration, when I'm in the cinema and fidgeting, I know I'm at the wrong film.

I can't really go much higher than a five, as it committed the biggest film sin of all, it was boring, but it's not without merit.

5/10.

They advertised it as a (pre-historic) horror, but I would call it a thriller. It's rather slow-paced and the creepiness is mainly atmospheric: long scenes on barren hills and valleys and in dense woods, often in pitch-black nights. In between there are a few exciting outbursts of frenetic action in confrontations with what seem to be monsters; the relentless violence is impressively realistic. The cinematography is beautiful, but with so many dark scenes and with people who are difficult to tell apart since they're packed in thick layers of fur and have smeared faces, it's at many times hard to follow exactly what is happening.

The actors are made to speak the whole movie through some ancient (made up?) foreign language. I suppose this was meant to enhance the feeling of authenticity, but it's a bit tiresome to have to read subtitles for 85 minutes, distracting me from following the images. I also kept imagining what a strain it must have been to learn all these incomprehensible words and sentences. Personally, I wouldn't have minded it when they had chosen for English dialogues. And by the way, how did leader Adem get such a perfectly shaven head, did they have back then some kind of trimmers?

There's a nice twist in the end, with even an existential message: however different people may outwardly look and act, inside they are basically the same human beings. So in spite of the rather cynical and violent conclusion, the movie ended with at least a hopeful touch.

So a group of Stone Age wanderers are searching the bleak wilderness for a new home when they begin to suspect that they are being stalked. Noises in the woods unsettle them, but they see nothing. Suddenly, though, one of their number is taken and the leader "Adem" (Chuku Modu) must make some difficult choices to ensure the survival of both his son and of his pregnant wife. The denseness of the Scottish forestry along with some creative use of light, shadow and audio goes some way to keep the film interesting but the plot itself is really weak and the actors - perfect teeth, skin, leather clothing that wouldn't look out of place at a gay pride gathering - all deprive the thing of any sense of menace or grittiness. It's difficult to watch without thinking the production caravan is just three feet out of shot! The redeeming feature may be an impressibly natural performance from Safia Oakley-Green ("Beyah") but I'm afraid for the most part, I struggled to remain engaged and the ending, well that was just rushed and a little disappointing too. I would still suggest you watch it, if you get the opportunity - but on the television is fine and don't expect to be scared.

The movie begins interestingly enough as we are introduced to the characters. There are subtitles as the characters speak a language developed for the film and the story telling around the fire does have a good atmospheric effect, but very quickly the characters begin to distract from that atmosphere. This group of Northern Europeans from 45,000 years ago is made up of what appears to be three people of at least partial African descent, one of Middle Eastern descent and one Caucasian, all of whom have short or close cropped haircuts you'd be unsurprised to see today. The skins they wear are almost modern in their appearance and they are sewn and stitched again in what appears a very modern way. From here the movie continues to be an uneven mashup of entertaining suspense followed by confusing choices while not quite allowing the viewer to suspend disbelief. Loose ends abound from the odd black goo discovered after a major plot point, to the gory "slaughterhouse" area found all the while decrying the lack of game to hunt. It seems forced and manufactured and worst of all the villainous force at the end is comical and absurd. Also, the slaughtered mammoth that is found seems to be related to the villain, but again, that too adds to the absurdity. By the end of the movie, I was out of patience and ready to leave. Very mediocre and ok to watch for free somewhere but don't pay for it.