AND SOON THE DARKNESS DVD (2010)

SYNOPSIS: Stephanie (Amber Heard) and Ellie's (Odette Yustman) vacation to an exotic village in Argentina is a 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 (Karl Urban), 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.

MOVIE REVIEW:

There are two reasons to watch this remake of the 1970s British thriller- Amber Heard and Odette Yustman. How often do you get to see two gorgeous Hollywood actresses in shorts, sexy dresses and yes even bikinis in the same film? Well, you get all that right here, so for some, that should be reason enough to go grab this direct-to-video title for keepsakes.

Otherwise, if you need more reason to watch this, then there really is little else that will convince you. First-time director Marcus Efron’s modern-day remake doesn’t offer much we haven’t already seen in other horror thrillers such as ‘Hostel’ and ‘Turistas- and indeed, its reluctance to push the envelope into torture porn may ultimately prove to be its undoing as well.

After all, the opening scene of a teenage girl chained in a grimy room and then electrocuted until she passes out promises to deliver the kind of shocks that the ‘Saw’ and ‘Hostel’ audiences crave. But strangely, Efron backs away from this tantalising promise all too soon. Instead, we get picturesque images from d.p. Gabriel Beristan of the Argentinean mountains where the movie was shot, some interesting shots of a local village and oh yes of course the droolworthy shots of Amber and Odette.

The screenplay by Efron and Jennifer Derwington is all too familiar- Amber and Odette play two carefree American teenagers who stumble into a foreign land and get caught up in a nasty kidnapping scheme. Odette is the one who goes missing, which leaves Amber searching frantically for her- together with a mysterious ex-pat Michael (Karl Urban) who is also somehow connected to the incident.

It takes half the movie for Odette to be kidnapped, by which time Efron shifts the focus to Amber and Karl and their desperate attempts at trying to locate Odette before the darkness falls- including appealing to the unhelpful local police to organise a search party. Yes, because of that, there are little visceral thrills that torture porn enthusiasts will enjoy- and when it does get there, the bad guy’s attempt at trying to rape her are constantly interrupted by something or another.

Don’t get us wrong- we’re not sadists here, but because of how perfunctory the entire movie is, we thought the filmmakers should simply have gone down that route in order to inject some much-needed excitement into the movie. As it is, much of the looking and looking around is rather inconsequential. Worse still, Efron doesn’t bother with much characterisation, so the American duo of Stephanie (Amber) and Ellie (Odette) come off as little more than gorgeous and the locals nothing more than unfriendly or criminals.

So in the end, there are only two reasons to watch this film- Amber and Odette. If you haven’t heard of them, trust us on this- the girls are gorgeous. No, you say that it isn’t enough to get you to watch this film- well, we tried our best, but we really couldn’t find anything else worth the time. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

This Region 3 disc comes with an Audio Commentary by director Marcus Efron, editor Todd Miller, and director of photography Gabriel Beristan and may be interesting for those who wish to hear about their experience shooting a low-budget film in a foreign location. 

AUDIO/VISUAL:

The Dolby Digital 5.1 provides a good surround companion to heighten the tension during certain moments. Visuals are clear and sharp.

MOVIE RATING:

 (one for each leading actress, we may add)

DVD RATING :

Review by Gabriel Chong