Out of Darkness

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.

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.

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.

There hasn't been many films about prehistoric people, especially the meeting of the Cro-Magnon man and Neanderthals. This film had so much potential in exploring this, but instead it was executed poorly as a "horror" film without any real horror. As others have said, most of the film is too dark to see, a lot of running and hiding, jump scares.

What really disappointed me is the lack of simple research in the topic for such a film. The depiction of the Neanderthals and the first Cro-Magnon into Europe after the ice age were completely scientifically off. This makes people who actually know enough of the subject unable to suspend their disbelief.

I'll give this a 4 for the creativity and concept. However, if you really want to watch a good film on this topic, I suggest the NOVA special from 20 years ago which covers it in detail and filmed it with high quality aesthetics.

4/10.

I watched Out of Darkness "early" as part of AMC's Screen Unseen. I put early in quotes because apparently this is a 2022 movie that took two years to reach theaters. I can see why. It doesn't belong in theaters. It belongs in the endless abyss of underwhelming and unmemorable streaming movies.

This movie has very little substance. Not much happens. I can summarize the entire thing in a few short sentences. The story is not engaging. You barely learn anything about the characters. So you don't care about them or understand their decisions.

They spend the entire movie teasing you until a fully underwhelming and generic "payoff." It made me roll my eyes. And it has a message we've seen a million times before, but executed in a clunky fashion.

(1 viewing, early screening Screen Unseen 1/29/2024)