The Dark Light

A rare Hammer film not available commercially now. It's an average quality black and white production about criminals taking over a light house on an island. The title refers to that light being put out. The lighthouse crew think they are rescuing survivors of a sunken boat. These are bank robbers trying to escape, and a conflict ensues. The story develops in flashback style, when a passing yacht discovers what looks like an abandoned lighthouse. They investigate and find it deserted. Then the film shifts to a previous day (without making that clear to the viewer) and we see what happened. It's an interesting location and theme, and is adequately produced, but not an important film.

THE DARK LIGHT is another Vernon Sewell picture, shot for Hammer in the early days of the studio, and making full use of the director's yacht which he managed to shoehorn into a dozen or so movies. This one's a lighthouse thriller annoyingly told via a wraparound story which presents the main story in flashback. All this only serves to pad out a very slim storyline in a film which comes up short to begin with. The story sees some shipwreck survivors taking refuge in a lighthouse, only for dark secrets to emerge. It's serviceable enough but never particularly suspenseful, and the cast is undistinguished.