From the Dark (2014)

 

 

OK, I hate to sound like I’m going in on a film, a director, an actor, or a writer too hard but this thing is loaded with a few errors that just don’t make sense.  I will point them out as we go along.  First and foremost, it doesn’t take long for us to realize we are in vampire story.  The location is the Irish countryside.  A man is seen digging up peat and as he is digging his shovel hits something.  He investigates and finds what looks like a piece of wood sharpened into what seems to be a stake that could be used to kill a vampire.  He discards the stake and looks inside a hole where he then sees a hand.  Later, after the sun has set and day has turned to night, he is attacked by something unseen but what isn’t unseen is the bite marks on his neck.  Then the scene switches to Sarah and Mark who are a couple on vacation.  While driving near the same area as the peat farmer their car gets stuck in the mud.  This is all well and good, but I have my first complaint here.  As we see in varying shots of the area, we can get the lay of the land and I’m sorry this is not logical and it’s lazy film making.  The car is stuck in the mud at the top of a hill where it would be impossible for water to pool and then to make mud.   I'm sorry it doesn't happen that way. 

 

 

From my experience the tops of hills aren’t that muddy especially when just about every other area we are shown is pretty dry.  So easy fix put the car at the bottom of the hill, but no they didn’t do that.  The director here is Conor McMahon who I have seen at least one of his films prior to this and that being Stitches.  I’m guessing with a name like that he’s Irish.  I only say that because the actors playing Sarah and Mark are Irish as well.  Hell, for that matter the guy who played the old farmer is Irish, so this is a home-grown Irish film, and I love it for that.  After their car is stuck in the mud and they can’t get any reception on their cell phones (because of course they can’t!), Mark (Stephen Cromwell also seen in The Devil’s Woods and A Date for Mad Mary) decides he is going to go for help leaving Sarah (Niamh Algar who has also been in The Wonder and Censor) with the car.  As night falls Sarah decides to look in the trunk for a pack of cigarettes.  We are shown that there is something there trying to attack her, but it cannot get to her if she is in the light of the car.  I guess the moon isn’t enough light because it’s a full moon and it looks bright out there.  OK, the lights from the car are brighter so I’ll let that slide. 

  

Mark makes it to a house and as he tries to get in there are all sorts of lights outside lighting up the place.  Now here is a situation that at first doesn’t seem that confusing but here’s the deal, did the old farmer guy just wake up a vampire by removing the stake in its heart?  Because if so, how is the farmhouse so vampire ready?  With as many lights that are shining around outside, they have to know the thing is afraid of the light but then that means there are other vampires (or whatever this creature is but I’m going with vampire) for their weaknesses to be known.  So, either they don’t know about vampires and their fear of the light (which would be a huge coincidence) or the old farmer did reawaken a curse that had laid dormant for a long period of time so why didn’t he know what it was right away?  Both things can’t be true.  This can’t be something new the town knows a lot about.  One or the other.  Wow that sounded way more confusing than it had to be.  But yeah, back to the movie; From the Dark, as you would expect with that title is pretty dark.  Soon the pair have the old farmer, who is played by Gerry O’Brien (Lassie and A Merry Scottish Christmas) as well as the creature to deal with.  Their only hope is to make it to dawn. 

 

From the Dark is hard to watch at times and all for the wrong reasons.  They film in such a dark area and then light three candles and the camera has a hard time staying in focus.  Frustrating!  It is nicest when there is minimum light, and you can just make out the creature very close by but still in the dark.  One of the coolest moments comes when Sarah suddenly finds a light switch to turn on and the creature that is very close to killing her is stopped and quickly turns to dust.  Only we don’t see it turn to dust and then when Sarah goes to it and begins to swipe at it like she’s wrecking a sandcastle we only get to see a shadow of it happening.  So even some of the better moments are cheapened by short cuts.  I get it, they probably had no budget, so kudos to them for making this as good as it is, I guess.  It is a very edge of your seat horror flick I will say that for it.  Then the most contrived ending happens, and I can just see McMahon (he wrote as well as directed) getting all wild eyed and giggly when he wrote the next to last scene.  Lots of small things that add up and lead me to giving this two and a half Coleman lanterns out of five.  With a little help it could have been three, easily.  A shame really.