By Terry Sherwood
For those of us who have hiking experience and are blessed with living close to world-class facilities mountains and rivers in Canada, there is always one caveat no matter what the season. ‘Mother Nature always bats last’ hence one gets the stories of mountain deaths, drownings, and animal encounters that end badly usually for the animal. Spirituality exists in the woods and night, having been in complete darkness and silence that invites folk horror into the mind.
The above was why I found the Swedish film From Darkness originally titled Ur mörkret is a compelling exercise in suspense at times an intense, gloomy trek into the woods to solve a mystery. Influenced by Folk Horror in this case local legend of a beast that makes children disappear you have a group of people band together to find a missing woman who went off looking for Theo her child.
The film begins with a wonderfully moody nocturnal sequence with Reserve Park officer Stefan (Thomas Hedengran) finding a car parked on the side of a sow cover road. Finding no one around, searching all with lovely real breath coming out of his nose and mouth, Stefan tries to call for help, finds nothing, and decides to leave when he encounters a sudden appearance of a tree blocking his roadway. He steps out in the snow and ice to investigate only to have his behind him vehicle start up then shut off plunging him into total darkness. This does not end well.
The next morning battling some bureaucratic red tape since it is Christmas time in the person of a superior officer Bengt (Lennart B. Sandeli). Reserve Officer Angelica ( Rakel Benér) rounds up the few volunteers she can find – base camp tent-sitting Aisha (Archanner Khanna) and her new boyfriend Johan (Peter Morlin) to venture out in search of the possibly mad woman still looking for her missing son and to find the fate of Stefan. Included in the group because of his experience is her ex-lover Dog handler / outdoor expert consultant Viktor (Oscar Skagerberg) and his tracking Dog Noah. From this one learns that the forest area is haunted by a ‘cave wraith’, a spectre unleashed hundreds of years ago by ill-advised ore mining who sacrifices people and animals giving the Ore company locations to dig
As the group goes out, locations are discovered, and spectral sightings including the novel use at least in genre films of Drones to search instead of providing intro overhead footage. The back story unfolds regarding secrets such as Viktor having to take anti-psychotic drugs much to the hatred of her new boyfriend Johan who thinks that all the sightings of ‘something’ he reports are because he is not well. Johan also thinks Viktor is trying to get back with Angelica with whom he has a deep emotional history. All these people have had personal losses ranging from children, relationships, sanity, jobs and limbs that were frozen off. The most stable of these is the lovely Dog Noah who aids them in tracking, finding ruins, and alerting them of trouble
From Darkness is filmed well in some inky black, cold winter conditions. Reminiscent at times of the Original Blair Witch Project due to its local legend build up with ruins, and similar ins cope with the new UK film The Moors in which again you have misfits with a history together to put an end to a mystery that authorities cannot. Structurally the build-up, the details while not as deeply laden reminded me of the superb 1988 George Sluizer-directed Dutch / French crime thriller The Vanishing or Spoorloos.
Creeping tension in a small story, with damaged folks with some performances that are effective to see. Stand-out moments include a brilliant intro shot of the knife-carrying woman in a deserted cabin and her later realization that someone is not coming back. Mind-numbing as the cold are some of the deaths without the usually slashing gore with deep wounds caused by simple memories and traumatic history overshadowing some of the suspense that is generated. From Darkness is a solid thriller viewing so enjoy this at a cabin with a warm fire mulled wine and winter winds blowing, then go out for a walk. Just make sure to check the weather, file your plans and route with the park office or you may end up in the spirit world.
Bloody Flicks 