Out of the Dark

Here's the thing, it has a good cast. It has a somewhat decent story. The problem is that this movie made me hate a kid and that's not good. The little girl was clearly directed to be a dumb little kid, and the lines made it worse. I hate to say that because it sounds so cruel but the little actress ruined it. If she reads this, bc there aren't many reviews, it's not your fault lol, it's the directors.

Greetings from Lithuania.

"Out of the Dark" (2014) is more of a mystery thriller with some horror elements rather then a horror movie. It's not scary, yet it has some jump scare moments, which are kinda generic and predictable. If you will start watching this movie in hope to see a great horror movie, you will end up disappointed.

That said, "Out of the Dark" is more of a mystery movie. Plot is simple, yet not that bad. The best parts of this movie in my opinion was solid cinematography, gorgeous locations (shoot at location in Columbia), nice acting by J.Stiles (unfortunately Scott Speedman was miscast here) and some very nice pacing of this movie. Director did kinda nice job, but script in here should have been improved.

Overall, "Out of the Dark" is not a bad movie, it's just not a horror as it's advertisement says. It's nice to see some scenery change once in a while, and this movie has one. Good pacing, nice acting by lead actress, solid cinematography and some mystery story with horror elements makes this movie a worth seeing once.

Not scary (often boring) ghost movie about an American family in Colombia terrorized by local spooks mad at grandpa. Gramps is a businessman so, like every movie businessman ever, he's got blood on his hands. It's all pretty clichéd stuff and not the least bit unnerving or frightening. The jump scares didn't even make me twitch. My butt was asleep by the end of it. Speaking of the end, there's at least one bit that's unbelievably corny. If you have the guts to sit through this, you'll see what I'm referring to.

Julia Stiles and Scott Speedman have both done better. They have no chemistry and their work here is forgettable. Pixie Davies plays the young daughter in constant danger. While she is certainly a cutie patootie, she's not a very good little actress. She has a heavy British accent while both of her parents are Americans. Even Stephen Rea, playing her grandpa, is using an American accent. I missed it when I watched but apparently there was a throwaway line of dialogue in the beginning that said the family had been living in London. Pretty flimsy but there you go. This was the first English-language film from this production company so perhaps it went unnoticed by everybody that Pixie couldn't change her accent until it was too late to recast. Or maybe they just didn't give a flip. It's not like it would have saved the movie or anything. It's a dud regardless.

I think that some movie creators really believe that if they put the word "dark" in the title it'll automatically be scary.

This was one very generic ghost story.

Let's look at the typical ghost story formula (the rest MAY be considered a spoiler so avert thy eyes now if you don't want this movie to potentially be ruined).

1.) someone killed in an unjust manner.

2.) unjustly killed has a ghost that terrorizes.

3.) character being terrorized finds out the history/true story behind the unjust death.

4.) ghost is placated or subdued due to the discovery.

The jump scares, spooky music and ominous setting is all there for setting the mood. If this is your first ghost movie go-round then maybe you were impressed; as for me, SMH.

My review probably isn't going to add a whole lot because quite honestly this is a RARE case where I actually agree with just about EVERYONE else in what they have said in their Summaries about this film...

Basically, I suppose I just wanted to add my general agreement with most people here that the film is not terrible at all. The mood and look of the film is nice, the acting and direction are decent, and there are a FEW scary moments, but ultimately, I just don't think that it has enough depth and substance to make it a very effective Horror film. I guess I AM a bit of a sucker for Haunted Children stories, but there are two other films similar to this one that I personally like a ***LOT*** better and I wanted to come here and mention them because they have a very similar theme, but I feel are far better movies.

'THE ORPHANAGE' (2007) An exquisitely moody Spanish film by one of Guillermo Del Toro's protégés.

'THE AWAKENING' (2011) A very effective British Period Horror film about a Haunted Hospital starring Rebecca Hall. I think that I rated them both 9/10

So, FWIW, I thought that if the premise of this film caught your interest, I really wanted to be sure to tell you about these two other films which I feel are amongst the best of this Genre. I highly recommend them!

About this movie... Basically, the technical aspects are just fine. The acting and direction are good. I feel that the director did moderately well in creating a fairly decent mood. But, I think that maybe the story itself and perhaps the way it was developed could have used a bit more complexity and depth. Otherwise, it is a pretty much just a passably mild, 'Haunted Children' Horror film. And Stephen Rea is all but wasted in his role, really.

I actually gave this a '5' which is a little higher than it's current 4.x, for what it's worth...

P.S: BTW, I haven't seen it yet (although I've bloody HAD the film for like 3 years) but the Spanish made, English speaking movie 'FRAGILE' (2005) starring Calista Flockhart, also about a Haunted children's Hospital, looks pretty damn good...