Dinie Aryal
Out of the Dark seemed full of potential considering its mysterious and shady storyline. That alone was enough to make this writer sit through the entire movie despite the stereotypical slow moving characters, illogical decisions and shrieking jump scares. Nevertheless, it turns out to be a letdown.
Based in Santa Clara, Colombia, the movie centers on a family haunted by ghost children killed in a mercury poisoning accident at a paper-manufacturing factory 20 years ago.
Sarah Harriman (Julia Stiles) moves to Santa Clara together with her husband Paul (Scott Speedman) and daughter Hannah (Pixie Davies), to take over her father’s paper-manufacturing business. Sarah’s dad Jordan Harriman (Stephan Rea) invited them to stay in the house where the doctor who murdered the children was killed. How brilliant. The couple even met the late doctor’s son, Dr. Andres Contreras, Jr. (Alejandro Furth).
Questionable occurrences happen in the house on the very first night of their stay, enough for them to definitively conclude that the place was haunted (and that they should probably move out). Like any horror movie, the decisions they make in the movie are dubious and foreseeable. “Are they courting death?” is a question that keeps ringing through this writer’s ears.
While Sarah and Paul are out one night, Hannah is left with a babysitter named Catalina (Vanessa Tamayo). Through ghostly methods, Hannah is lured into an abandoned and nasty looking ‘food lift’. A rotten, deformed ghost child meets Hannah and scares her until she loses consciousness with a deafening shrill.
Unfortunately, Catalina doesn’t see the need to check on Hannah even after seeing a red ball paranormally bounce in front her. So Hannah remains unconscious until her parents get home and search for her frantically. Later, they find strange ‘rashes’ on their daughter’s arm and legs.
It finally strikes the couple that something is supernaturally wrong (about time!) when Hannah starts running a high fever and inexplicably gets mercury poisoning. How many hints do you need, Sarah?
The mystery element of the storyline, however, kept this writer from walking out of the cinema. Hannah gets kidnapped by a group of undead children who wrap her in a mosquito net, and Sarah and Paul go on a search for their child individually with the help of the poor fired babysitter. At the same time, they piece together the mystery of the dead children.
Out of the Dark is flushed with unneeded draggy suspense. The “scariest” parts of the movie are the music and obnoxiously ear-piercing jump scares, although we have to credit the untypical visualization of the ghostly beings. The ghosts were like tiny, fast running zombies instead of the usual floaty white shadows. The storyline has a lot of loopholes too that left us confused – the main one being “Why wasn’t Dr. Andres Contreras, Jr targeted instead for what his father has done?”
Although the scenic shoots of Colombia and the main cast’s acting skills are pretty commendable, the horror aspect is a letdown. We had hoped for less deafening screams and more creepy undead children.
[xrr rating=2/5 display_as=textstars label=”Our Rating:”]
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Information
Cast: Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman, Stephen Rea, Alejandro Furth, Pixie Davies
Director: Lluis Quilez
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Rating: NC-16
Runtime: 92 minutes
Release date: 21 May 2015