There’s a common theme throughout They Wait in the Dark, clear from the opening seconds, and it relates to the cycle of abuse: how damaged children become damaged adults, making choices which perpetrate further harm – to themselves and others. There’s some room for debate on how convincingly this is done overall in the film, but despite some misfires, it remains a worthwhile project.
As the film opens, we see a little girl standing over the body of a murdered woman – a flashback, we gather, but as it’s made clear to us that we have followed the little girl into adulthood, things don’t exactly seem to be on an even keel now, either. When we pick up her story, she seems to be camped out on the floor of a convenience store with a little boy, her son; this is strange behaviour which soon gets them noticed. They have to move on, heading to a nearby motel for the night (paying cash, which is itself cast as a little suspect). As the woman – Amy (Sarah McGuire) – examines herself in the bathroom mirror, we see that she has a stab wound in her side. They’re fleeing from someone then, and they need to get to the next town quickly.
Amy has just inherited the old family home on the death of her father, and on their way there – where they plan on going to ground for a while – they meet an old friend of Amy’s, Jenny (Paige Maria), who is working as a waitress in a local diner. They used to be close; Jenny is therefore insistent on helping the pair, and drops them at the old house herself, cautioning Amy that the place has become a magnet for local teens, who are aware that it has a history. Kids have been hanging out there, doing drugs, doing seances even; there is some evidence of this inside, but Amy and young Adrian (Patrick McGee) have little choice, and clean up as best they can. They evidently don’t want to be found. But have they already been found, by someone or something? There may be more at stake here than just Amy’s pursuant partner.
The part of Amy was written for actor Sarah McGuire, and she is, by and large, very effective in this role. She is very slight physically, which lends an extra menace to the physical risks and harms she undergoes in the film. Added to that, she is clearly strained, tired, but defiant and fiercely protective. Having established this, the film takes a risk by adding in elements of her own unpleasant behaviour, because having made us sympathise with Amy, we are then invited to call what we think we know into question; certainly, McGuire has much to do here, as do the audience. Added to that, the film is ambitious in the possible directions it could go; it feels a little contested in places as a result, first seemingly a clear-cut horror about a realistic situation, and then potentially an occult horror. It builds in new reveals, using catch-up conversations with Jenny to backfill the story, but keeping the legacy of trauma in view. There are lots of individual plot elements to balance.
Some elements inevitably slip out of view as the film drives towards its conclusion. Similarly, the character of Judith (Laurie Catherine Winkel) is fraught with unlikely lines and developments, which pull away from the more realistic dialogue and performances given by McGuire and McKee primarily: the ways Judith is written to be a ‘nasty piece of work’ seems to involve perpetual smoking (people look increasingly unfamiliar with how cigarettes work the more they recede from use, by the way) and listening to metal with vengeful lyrics as she makes her way to her destination, a destination she finds easily enough. Not needed, arguably: in some respects, you could argue that her physical presence in the moment is not needed at all, particularly when linked with some minor continuity errors late in the film – these are unfortunate. But despite some of these moments, They Wait in the Dark does rally for a provocative finale, endeavouring to give an engaging point and purpose to what comes before. There’s ambition here which is largely successful, and the film does make an attempt to tackle uncomfortable topics head-on, approaching them in potentially unpleasant, but ultimately interesting ways, with a few thought-provoking about-face moments.
They Wait in the Dark is available now.