DVD Review: And Soon the Darkness
And Soon the Darkness (2010)
Released by: Anchor Bay DVD – December 28, 2010
Directed by: Marcos Efron
Starring: Amber Heard, Odette Yustman, Karl Urban
Review by Marc Patterson
And Soon the Darkness is your typical stranger in a strange land travel terror film based on a forgotten remake of the same name, who, until five minutes ago, most of us probably never knew about in the first place.
The story follows Stephanie and Ellie (Heard and Yustman respectively), who are taking a relaxing bike tour through Argentina when they decide to ditch their tour group and trek out on their own adventure. This, as horror fans know, is always the first key to inevitable disaster. They come across a small village and decide to take up for a night in the local hotel before catching the morning bus. Naturally they party late with the locals at the barn turned bar and naturally the alarm clock fails to work and naturally they miss the bus. Lots of cliché-ridden action going on here if you haven’t picked up on what I’m putting down.
Making the best of their situation, the girls decide to explore the area and ask the lady innkeeper about a touristy type spot not too far away, Villa del Lago. A look of horror comes across the innkeeper’s face as she warns them away, taking their brochure and crumpling it. “Go see some waterfalls instead,” she tells them. This should be clue number two. When all the guys in the village seem inherently creepy in a would-be rapist kind of way, and the only American in town (Urban) personifies the trademark “bad boy who can’t be trusted, but who’s the only other English speaking guy around”, it’s perhaps wise to listen to some woman to woman advice. But Stephanie and Ellie don’t because… well, because there wouldn’t be much of a film if they did.
I’ll gloss over the details and get straight to the crux. The girls get in an argument, split up, Ellie gets kidnapped and Stephanie joins up with Michael the American to find her. There are some rather fun twists and turns that abound, but eventually the film goes exactly where you think it will, and while I don’t want to spoil anything, I think it’s fairly safe to say that from the trailer you pretty much get the type of film this is and where it’s going.
But let’s talk about the film and let the synopsis simmer in the background for a moment. And Soon the Darkness is to a large extent exactly what you think it’s going to be, but whereas some may fault it for taking a path of familiarity, which we’ve seen play out in countless thrillers that follow travelers who get in trouble abroad, I tend to think its story is told in an effective way. No, it doesn’t have the size or scale as seeing Liam Neeson take down human traffickers in Taken. Nor does it push the boundaries of our gag reflex such as shock value torture porn seen in Hostel and a bevy of other such films. Rather And Soon the Darkness sits somewhere comfortably in-between, avoiding mass scenes of torture and bloodletting, and putting the focus on suspense driven thrills that work in spite of their redundancy. To that end, this is an R rated film, but barely.
The acting from our two leads is surprisingly solid. Yustman gets a few good lines early on and even a slightly comical scene where she rocks out to the jukebox before hitting the ladies room and popping a squat in front of Urban, who seems impervious to her odd charms. This scene really gives us a solid look at her character, and lets us understand who she is and what makes her tick. Yustman’s acting in her prior foray into horror The Unborn was stiff and unbelievable. Here she seems a bit more natural and displays great chemistry with Heard. 
While Karl Urban gets a top billing spot, he seems to phone in his performance. Sadly, he’s just kind of there, and doesn’t do much with his character. The real winner in the film is Amber Heard, who co-produced the film and who is quite enjoyable to watch throughout. While she’s relegated to the role of “final girl”, she executes her performance in a less than cliché manner and I’m truly looking forward to seeing more from her in the future. The biggest winner? Both of these girls are completely likable characters, which takes me to my next point.
One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the exploration of feminism. And I don’t want to get too deep into this because I don’t think the film goes there completely, but in watching the film I got a distinct sense of a more maternal hand guiding the film, something that might be overlooked by others due to the presence of a male director. In looking at the details of the film, I found that many of the film’s producers are women and the film was scripted by a woman. I found it striking that while the women in the film weren’t necessarily these strong figures of independence they always, ALWAYS, exhibited goodness and a sense of maternal caring, which is contrasted by the inherent evil that lingers in the men who surround them. This idea is really cemented in the final scene of the film, which I won’t spoil, but again builds the case that though this film treads familiar territory that we’ve all seen before, it is doing so in a slightly different way, by substituting exploitative torture and gratuitous nudity for something more protective and pure.
As credits rolled, And Soon the Darkness surprisingly proved to be thoroughly entertaining. Being shot in a gorgeous South American backdrop only helped the production value. While it’s not going to make any best-of list, or go down in the annals of horror history as anything superbly standout, it was a solid film from top to bottom and accomplished what it set out to do. To that end I can tell you it’s worth a rental if you’re looking for a quick-paced watch-and-forget thriller.
