Film: And Soon The Darkness
Release date: 7th March 2011
Certificate: 15
Running time: 87 mins
Director: Marcos Efron
Starring: Amber Heard, Odette Yustman, Gia Mantegna, Adriana Barraza, Karl Urban
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Studio: Optimum
Format: DVD & Blu-ray
Country: USA/Argentina/France
This is an English-Language release.
Director Marcos Efron’s first full-length feature, And Soon The Darkness is a remake of a 1970s British thriller, keeping the original title and concept but replacing the French setting with a very sunny and dry Argentinean backdrop. The film is a predictable tale focusing on a pair of naive female travellers as they experience a nightmare vacation due to some local psycho kidnapper, facilitated by a very unhelpful or oblivious neighbourhood.
And Soon The Darkness is set in the majestic but deserted landscape of Argentina, where American best friends Stephanie and Ellie are on a biking holiday.
Having intentionally and unwisely strayed from their travel group, the two girls book a night in a local hotel and prepare for a 6am start to catch the once-a-day bus to their next location. Nevertheless, diplomat Stephanie watches as her reckless counterpart Ellie spends the evening flirting her way round the hotel bar into the early hours of the morning, irresponsibly leaving Stephanie to return to their room alone while Ellie wraps her legs and lips around newfound male friend Chuchos.
Having sufficiently teased this Argentinean stranger, Ellie decides it’s bed time, which provokes Chuchos to lose his temper until American next-door neighbour Michael comes to the girls’ aid. The duo predictably oversleep and miss the only bus out of the place, resulting in some solitary sunbathing in an area they don’t know, until they suddenly find themselves bickering unnecessarily over boyfriend issues. And so begins their ordeal: Stephanie storms off, leaving an unaccompanied Ellie as the perfect candidate for any nearby kidnappers.
After restlessly waiting for Ellie to emerge, Stephanie receives an apologetic text message from her which suggests lunch at a nearby cafe. However, when Ellie fails to show up, Stephanie assumes that something bad has happened and returns to the scene of their petty disagreement. Stephanie dubiously accepts the help of Michael and Argentinian policeman Calvo, with understandable doubt as to who she can trust. However, sporadic glimpses of Ellie’s whereabouts mean that there isn’t much room for imagination or concern for the viewer.
Nearby inhabitants are also ridiculously ignorant and refuse to help a distressed Stephanie; and, despite the hotel receptionist Rosamaria’s polite demeanour, there are sinister glances exchanged between her and her husband. Is Stephanie in the middle of some sort of corrupt conspiracy? Is the entire town involved? Aided by Michael, Stephanie eventually finds Ellie - unsurprisingly in the captivity of Chuchos. A chase ensues, guns are fired...
The actors try their best, but cheesy scripting and implausible plot choices mean that their efforts are in vain. Amber Heard (Ellie) and Odette Yustman (Stephanie) are commendably fruitful in their attempts to perform the script, but the characters are just too frustrating in their stupidity. None of the characters feel deep enough to be real, and Karl Urban appears to be playing the role of a bored and pointless piece of narrative furniture as the part of Michael. The one-dimensional, bikini-clad American girls don’t really induce the sympathy required, and so the film isn’t quite able to generate any sense of dread.
Aside from the undernourished narrative, Gabriel Beristain’s cinematography and Tomandandy’s sporadic atmospheric noise rescue this movie from being a complete disaster. A warm colour palette completes the beautiful Argentinean landscape, and there are some striking shots of nearby derelict locations - an abandoned luxury hotel fitted with a remaining lavish chandelier, and a nearby rubbish dump complete with eerie broken dolls.
And Soon The Darkness doesn’t help itself, as it seems unsure of what it’s actually meant to be. The opening scene indicates that the next 91 minutes are going to be overflowing with terror porn and torture scenes, but this first 6 minutes of film is about as horrific as it gets. It miscarries the genre of horror because there is never enough tension to create fear; nothing is developed into anything challenging. The laughable behaviour of the girls means that its role as a thriller is also diminished, but it doesn’t really stand strong as anything else due to its lack of humour or quirkiness.
The serious issue of South America’s sex slave trade is basically sidestepped; no serious points are made because Efron has somehow managed to nullify any prospective emotional response. The story is too inconsistent to be moving, the girls are too foolish to be appreciated, the mild peak at the end is too late to create drama and too placid to provoke shock… But, ignoring this tirade of organisational flaws, it is both admirable and refreshing to see that, despite having two aesthetically flawless lead actresses, Efron refrained from turning his film into another notch on the bedpost for the typical sexed up and gory American B-movie.
And Soon The Darkness has all the ingredients necessary to make a brilliant horror film, but the lack of character development and its painfully tame behaviour means that the audience is left significantly disappointed. Rather than building the film up for a series of climactic twists, every hint at plot diversity is ruined by early spoilers with regards to where the victim is and the identity of the kidnapper. NM
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