Movie Review: OUT OF DARKNESS

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: February 9th, 2024 / 03:53 AM

OUT OF DARKNESS movie poster | ©2024 Bleecker Street

Rating: R
Stars: Safia Oakley-Green, Kit Young, Chuku Modu, Iola Evans, Arno Luning, Luna Mwezi, Rosebud Melarkey, Tyrell Mhlanga
Writer: Ruth Greenberg, story by Andrew Cumming & Ruth Greenberg & Oliver Kassman
Director: Andrew Cumming
Distributor: Bleecker Street
Release Date: February 9, 2024

OUT OF DARKNESS experiments with the definition of screen horror. It has murder and gore, as well as the titular darkness, but its ultimate goal is more social commentary than scares. Director Andrew Cumming and screenwriter Ruth Greenberg, working from a story they crafted with producer Oliver Kassman, have created something largely worthwhile, though probably not what most viewers are expecting.

Set 45,000 years ago, OUT OF DARKNESS follows a small expedition of humans who have broken away from their tribe in search of better hunting grounds and a new social order.

We first see a campfire, tiny in the surrounding blackness, then come in closer to see six people sitting around it. In subtitled dialogue (Daniel Andersson devised the language), we meet group leader Adem (Chuku Modu). He is accompanied by his pregnant mate Ave (Iola Evans), his teen son Heron (Luna Mwezi), his brother Geirr (Kit Young), older advisor Odal (Arno Luning), and “stray” Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green).

Adem has brought this company over rough seas to a new land. Odal is already complaining that the earth here is barren. They can’t find anything to hunt. Then Adem and Geirr find the decimated remains of a mammoth. There are strange cries in the night, then fears of a demon, and then disappearance and death.

What’s going on here is more complicated than it appears. Certainly, all of the behavior is plausible. This is one story where we don’t question anybody’s judgment, because they truly don’t know where they are and have no precedent for either what’s happening around them or what they’re doing in response.

The actors are all very good, fluent in both the physicality and the invented verbal language of their characters without overdoing any of it.

Cumming sometimes favors realistic lighting of night scenes. The use of the Aurora Borealis is one inventive way to get some extra illumination in, but still, sometimes it’s hard to see the action. This works for the characters’ confusion and terror, but can be frustrating for us as well. Apart from the evocative opening sequence, director Cumming also doesn’t quite achieve the level of dread that can come where the field of sight is limited. We know that something is lurking between the trees, but we are never as frightened as the characters are.

Also, once we and the survivors finally grasp the totality of the situation, we have questions about exactly how certain things happened.

Mostly, though, OUT OF DARKNESS is a good, serious look at what it means to venture into the unknown out of necessity. If it’s not as terrifying as it might be, it succeeds as a persuasive look at how human nature may not have changed much over the millennia.

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