DVD Reviews

And Soon The Darkness (Blu-Ray)

And Soon the Darkness is a remake of a 1970 film with the same name. While I can’t say I’ve actually seen the original (at least not that I remember) I can say that the remake is a decent watch. In fact, if the original is better than this remake, I’d be surprised. This remake has a few things going for it that I didn’t expect. The Director of Photography was Gabriel Beristain (Blade II, S.W.A.T., Fatal Instinct) so I was looking forward to seeing how good/bad the film would look. And, as far as the trailer was concerned, this film had some good looking actors. And while not filled with big name stars, it does have a few actors you might recognize. 

Amber Heard (who’s been seen lately in such films as Pineapple Express, Zombieland and The Stepfather) plays Stephanie who’s on vacation with Ellie, played by Odette Yustman (Cloverfield, The Unborn). They’ve stopped in an exotic village in Argentina on the perfect ‘girl’s getaway’ to bask in the sun, shop and flirt with the handsome locals. After a long night of bar-hopping, the girls get into an argument, and Stephanie heads out alone in the morning to cool off. But when she returns, Ellie has disappeared. Finding signs of a struggle, Stephanie fears the worst, and turns to the police for help. But the local authorities have their hands full already – with a string of unsolved kidnappings targeting young female tourists. Skeptical of the sheriff’s competency, she enlists help from Michael, played by Karl Urban (Doom, Star Trek), an American ex-pat staying at their hotel. Together they go on a frantic search for Ellie, but Stephanie soon realizes that trusting his seemingly good intentions may drag her farther from the truth. With danger mounting, and time running out, Stephanie must find her friend before darkness falls.

The audio is presented in a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track. Pans are sometimes subtle but always help add atmosphere to a scene. It’s a very smooth soundscape that doesn’t often draw attention to itself and yet adds a lot of discrete effects that have quite an impact on the overall feel of the film. The low end is quite deep and impressive when it needs to be. While I wasn’t exactly a fan of the music in the film, it is nicely reproduced never drowning out the dialogue which is, for the most part, always clean, clear and understandable. Subtitles are available in English (SDH) and Spanish. Considering the film was shot in Argentina, I was a little surprised not to find a Spanish language track.

When it comes to the look of the film, don’t let the opening scene of the film fool you. While it gives the impression of a film such as Hostel, this changes quickly once the film starts to get going. Gone is the gritty grainy picture in order to make way for beautifully coloured  Argentinian landscapes and bright sun drenched faces. There is still some grain in the picture but the overall picture is warm and film like with vivid colours. I could not detect any damage to the print (it looks to be shot digitally but isn’t) nor any artifacting. Detail is strong even in the darker moments of the film. While the later half of the film changes from a rainbow of colours to an almost monochromatic palette with a very washed out saturated look, the film never loses the consistency of the transfer. The 2.40:1 original aspect ratio has been maintained on this AVC encoded disc and looks fantastic considering the low budget direct-to-video nature of the film. Credit has to be given to Gabriel Beristain for creating such a lovely looking film and to the producers of this Blu-ray for reproducing it so well.

 This release has a few decent supplemental elements on top of the standards.  The disc opens with trailers for “Let Me In” and “The Disappearance of Alice Creed”. These are not available from the disc’s menu system (why do they do that?) but trailers for “Altitude” and “And Soon the Darkness” are.  There are several deleted scenes which are in standard definition. Included was one that gave more screen time to the “garbage scavenger.” I got the feeling that either there were more scenes shot involving him (not included with this extra) or perhaps there was more written for him in the script as he seemed to be hinted at in the final film but was never used.  It was almost as if he was removed as an after thought (or perhaps added?). For the most part, you could tell why the scenes were cut and I’m sure there were a lot more which weren’t included in this extra. Next up is the “Director’s Video Diary” which is a series of behind-the-scenes video with an overdub commentary explaining what is on screen. Though it is only a little over 10 minutes long, I quite enjoyed it and it gave some interesting information. I’d go as far as saying it’s the best extra on the disc. Finally, if you do some digging you’ll find that there’s a full length audio commentary on this release.  Found under the ‘Setup’ menu, after some scrolling, you’ll come across the option to select an audio commentary from Director Marcos Efron, Editor Todd E. Miller and DP Gabriel Beristain. The commentary is decent. All parties are quite involved and have a lot of insight into the production. I appreciated the addition of Mr. Beristain as the look of the film is quite important. Unfortunately, many times when he’s trying to give in depth information about how certain looks were created, he gets cut off by one of the others. While there is plenty of talk about where things were shot, what was built, the filmmaker’s intentions, the actors etc. there was something about the commentary that was less than entertaining. It’s not a bad commentary by any stretch but it’s not something that warrants recommendation or multiple listens.

The name of the film isn’t the only thing that’s the same between the remake and the original; the stories are very similar too. While the locale and characters are different, the overall concept or idea of a cautionary tale for vacationers, the bike tour, the fact that there are two girls, and their fight, among other things, are identical in the two films. Considering the age of the film, I was a little surprised that the filmmakers didn’t try and make something more original. While the re-telling of the same story isn’t necessarily a bad thing, especially when it’s from a little known cult film such as And Soon the Darkness, it doesn’t quite work in this case.  We’ve all seen this cautionary tale time and time again. Heck, we’re told from early childhood not to talk to strangers; to not go off alone and stay with our group. But, don’t let the “been there done that” story steer you away. For a direct to video, rental store release remake, And Soon the Darkness could be much worse. Instead, we are party to a nice looking film that’s somewhat entertaining

Review By Rob Harding