By Ben Bussey
It’s curious how I find myself teeming with respect and admiration for Guillermo del Toro, yet seem to have very little of those sentiments for the bulk of the Hispanic horror filmmakers crossing over to English language work in his wake. Promoted heavily on its links to del Toro’s output (specifically producer Belén Atienza, who also has Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphange on his CV), Out of the Dark is the feature debut of Spanish director Lluís Quílez, and from the moment I first read about it I was hit with the sinking feeling it was going to be another of those bland, mainstream-friendly horror movies with no bite. There seems to be a fairly standard set-up: good-looking well-to-do couple with young child relocates to strange new locale with dark secrets in its past; strange things start happening, and soon enough scepticism goes out the window as the once-rational adults realise something genuinely supernatural is going on.
This was what I anticipated going into Out of the Dark, and as much as I would like to have been proven wrong, I wasn’t. This is tedious, by-the-numbers, jump scare-loaded high gloss horror at its most repetitive and mundane, wasting the talents of all involved, from camera and production design teams who clearly know what they’re doing, to a cast who are capable of doing truly great work when given material that challenges them in any way. It’s so sad to see a directorial debut on which basically everyone involved seems to be just going through the motions, producing something which may well meet certain expectations technically and aesthetically, and may even aspire to connect emotionally, but instead just trudges through painfully over-familiar territory bringing nothing new or interesting to the table whatsoever.
Just to give you the essentials: the handsome young well-to-do couple are Julia Stiles and Scott Speedman, who have relocated with their daughter from London (presumably mentioned to explain the fact that, despite her parents both being quite clearly American, their child has an English accent) to the small town of Santa Clara in Colombia. Stiles is going to work at her father Stephen Rea’s paper factory, with a view to taking over the business once he retires. Rea, naturally, dotes on his daughter and granddaughter but barely conceals his contempt for his son-in-law. The handsome, well-to-do family unit move into a lavish, remote mansion which – wouldn’t you know it – has been uninhabited for more than 20 years. It’s only after they arrive that Stiles and Speedman learn of the tragic history haunting the town, including the firey death of hundreds of children centuries earlier – and, of course, it isn’t too long before their little girl starts having inexplicable encounters with mysterious, disfigured children who just might be the ghosts of those very cursed kiddiwinks. Ah, but then it transpires the real tragedies and dark secrets might in fact lie that little bit closer to home… and you won’t need to be a rocket scientist (or, I dunno, paper scientist) to figure out why, and/or who’s really to blame.
Creepy kids can be an effective angle, and Out of the Dark’s use of the diminutive antagonists may prove effective for the least demanding of jump-scare junkies (I assume such people must exist or they wouldn’t keep making these damn films). But though the potential is there to get genuinely sinister, Out of the Dark repeatedly pulls its punches, as if afraid to get too grim for the mainstream audience it clearly covets. But there’s the danger in contriving to make a film that appeals to everybody: you’re liable to wind up with something that isn’t really for anybody. A ‘well-made’ horror film at its most anonymous, Out of the Dark boasts no surprises, no suspense, and ultimately nothing to warrant a recommendation, other than that it looks quite nice. If that’s what you want from your horror movies, then knock yourself out.
Out of the Dark is out now on Region 2 DVD from Entertainment One.