![Deep In The Darkness [Blu-ray]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/61Er-0w4OJL._SX300_SY300_QL70_ML2_.jpg)
**MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW**
From the first few scenes of this movie as well as the synopsis I could tell this movie had a LOT of potential. However, I can firmly say that I don't feel like it lived up to that potential. Digging deep into the 'isolated small town with a dark secret' bag of tropes, it tries and sadly fails to set up what could have been a very interesting film. I enjoyed the first few scenes to be honest and the ominous atmosphere they were going for where it seems like everyone is trying very hard to avoid telling the protagonist more than they should. He even receives a package meant for the previous town doc containing some of deadliest diseases known to man. He decides to keep this in an unlocked fridge at knee height in his house with his daughter and never contacts the CDC about it. Brilliant. However, right around the point when Michael's wife informs him that she's pregnant, things begin to take a downturn. Pacing at this point goes right out the window and it's VERY difficult to tell just how long they've been living in this town after a point.
They set up the premise early enough on, giving us the legend of the creatures that live in the woods and the obligation Michael has to make a sacrifice to them. However, naturally he doesn't do this and that's when the consequences are supposed to set in. Unfortunately it's never made clear how the consequences even work as the ACTUAL consequences seem to fall on everyone BUT him and his family. How often is he even supposed to be making these sacrifices? Daily? Monthly? The man who explains it to him even says it can be anything from a squirrel to a deer so if it's meant to be a food source it doesn't seem like a particularly good system.
A series of increasingly bizarre encounters continues to happen between Michael and the 'Isolates' as they're called and I would love to see the script for this film just to figure out how many times it was must read 'Michael falls unconscious' as this seems to be the bulk of the means for transitioning from one scene to the next. During this time Michael's wife becomes increasingly paranoid and secretive with him and her character absolutely frustrated me to no end (though the ending made me feel a little better about her, it was difficult to deal with in the moment.) Michael basically deals with this slow build up of his neighbors dying and being forced to medically treat these cave monsters on his own as him and his wife never talk about anything to each other of substance for the rest of the film.
When Michael and co. finally decide to get out of dodge, realizing the townspeople are evil and in league with the man-eating cannibal monsters in the woods, they ACTUALLY PULL OVER WHEN THE SHERIFF PULLS UP BEHIND THEM WITH HIS LIGHTS ON. That takes a level of commitment to the rule of law I find simultaneously admirable and ridiculous. The group is forced back home after crashing their car in an attempt to escape and the final side character is eaten just in time for the climax when Michael must go and confront the creatures to retrieve his daughter. He preps for this by bringing with him a syringe full of bubonic plague from his death fridge and what are probably some antibiotics. Somehow in a state (NH) with pretty lax gun laws, the sheriff is the only person in this whole town who owns a single firearm. Not that anyone should need one as the creatures don't seem to be very capable fighters. They appear to be ambush predators at best, but if they really were strong and fast, they wouldn't need food supplements via animal sacrifice. That said, how the townsfolk manage to catch any substantial animal without any guns is anyone's guess (again, assuming that's even what the sacrifice is for, we're never told.)
The creatures which had previously spent the last 40 minutes trying to kill and eat him usher him gently into the cave to once again treat one of their sickly comrades. Shortly before this scene we're meant to have figured out alongside Dr. Michael that the creatures appear to rapidly develop infections. This was not well-implied after the c-section scene where I just assumed the creature had died from normal post-operative infections after getting major surgery with non-sterile equipment in a dank cave by a doctor with no knowledge of their anatomy who was also forced to drug himself beforehand. Again, there is no clear sense of time between when the c-section was performed and when the isolate developed the secondary infection.
So Michael is forced by the monsters to again inject himself before injecting anyone else and the plague is introduced into the population. Michael gives his daughter whatever pills he took to protect himself and we transition to the next scene after Michael passes out for reasons unknown. Again. The monsters are all dead and dying by the time he awakes and he returns home with his daughter who was apparently alive (although the way he acts with her when he woke up lead me to believe she was dead) and he gets home in time for his wife to be nearly finished giving birth.
The creepy town matron and her yes-men are there assisting with the birth and Michael is horrified when the baby is apparently not his, but an isolate child in what was probably the only successful foreshadowing given throughout the entire film. The creepy town matron then implies the newborn will one day take her own place as speaker for the monsters and Michael is RAPIDLY chloroformed and falls unconscious to transition the scene. Again. When he awakes, his wife and daughter are gone and we're treated to a lame twist wherein we learn his wife was secretly part of creepy matron's family from the beginning.
And then it ends.
The villains are going to feel rather awkward when they find out all the creatures contracted the black death and died, which makes the seeming 'evil triumphs' ending actually really really out of place. How does that conversation go when they go back to ask the doctor what happened? We'll never know as Michael probably falls unconscious after finding out about his wife's betrayal.
The acting, writing, lighting, and plot in this film are just sub-par. The best quality it has going for it are that all the effects for the monsters are spectacular. The actors playing the monsters are great and could've been ripped straight out of The Descent. I wouldn't avoid this movie as a waste of time because I can enjoy a film that's not necessarily super coherent, especially a horror film, if there's enough mystery or other things to grab my interest. So by all means, if you enjoy low-quality monster movies, this has the production values of a much better film with the writing and acting of a Sci-Fi Original Movie which I don't say as a dig, but as a compliment. Just be aware that there are an awful lot of plot holes. I mostly wrote this to vent my frustration at those. Overall, pretty decent, average film.
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April 21, 2015 "Please retry" | — | 1 |
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Maria S.
Prodotto buono,arrivato (ma non visionato)!
Reviewed in Italy on October 27, 2019
