Submitted by: Sachian Kumar
Not a half-bad shot at Hitchcockian terror from the British, “And Soon the Darkness” exploits an apparent English fear of the French, as two British girls (Franklin, from “Legend of Hell House,” and Dotrice) go on a biking trip across the French countryside.
Pretty girls
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in bikinis. Girl running frantically through the woods. Girl de-pantsed, chained-up, and screaming in a dingy basement or something. Karl Urban coyly looking off to the side. The cover art for most movies are usually just shouting “buy me! buy me! buy me!”; this one tells a story.
Worked for me, at least. I knew absolutely nothing about And Soon the Darkness beforehand, let alone the fact that it’s a remake of a British suspense flick from forty years back. All I knew is what you see plastered on the cover there, that it looked pretty horror-suspense-y, and that I’m a cheap date for anything starring Amber Heard or Odette Yustman. Put the two of ’em in one movie and it’s a done deal.
And Soon the Darkness is set in a sleepy, remote little town in Argentina: the last leg of a cycling trip that lifelong-BFFs Ellie (Odette Yustman) and Stephanie (Amber Heard) have taken together. They were part of a group, but they got bored and split off on their own, and things have been nothing but great up to this point even though their Spanish is limited to what little they’ve picked up from Sesame Street and dinners at Chi-Chi’s. There’s nothing about this speck on the map that screams out to send a postcard back home, but that’s okay. All they need is a bed to sleep on and an alarm clock to wake ’em up in time to catch the bus outta there the next morning.
Oops! Stephanie may be all buttoned down and responsible, but Ellie is more the Girls Gone Wild type. Shots: woo! There’s an I-guess-he’s-a-sexy-South-American-guy: woo! These two crazy kids are going at it hot and heavy outside while Stephanie tries in vain to catch a few winks, and when Ellie decides she’s had enough fun for the night, it all goes south. Boy Toy’s pissed. The girls are scared too shitless to notice that the alarm clock got unplugged during that whole ordeal. Oh well. There’s not another bus till the next morning, and since they’re stuck in El Middle de Nowhere, Argentina, the two of ’em try to make the best of it. They trot out on their bikes to sunbathe in the one place the innkeeper (Adriana Barraza) ominously told them not to go, and…well, something bad happens. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be much of a movie, right?
Stephanie knows that Ellie has been kidnapped. I mean, look at the ground: that’s her cell phone, and I’m guessing those spatters of blood over there are hers too. The cops blow Stephanie off.
When the two become separated after an argument, Franklin is left alone in an unfriendly French town. As she realizes her friend has disappeared, she isn’t sure who to trust. Adding to the tension, there’s news that a killer has been killing girls in the area for some years.
Director Fuest effectively uses the desolation and isolation of long stretches of open road to increase the sense of vulnerability of the two girls. The same sense was achieved with similar effect in Steven Spielberg’s one and only true horror film, “Duel.”
As a Frenchman in dark glasses seems to take an unhealthy interest in her, and with townsfolk totally unable to speak English, Franklin finds herself in any tourists’ absolute nightmare. To hell with the French!
Some downplay the effectiveness of this film because of its slow pace. I find it only adds to the tension. They absolutely don’t make ’em like this anymore. Anchor Bay did the right thing to release a remastered version to DVD in the early 2000s. It also played on American television in the 1970s, which is where most of us have probably seen it.
Movie 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 sherifs 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. Remake of “And Soon The Darkness” from 1970.
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