And Soon The Darkness (2010 remake/Anchor Bay Blu-ray + DVD)
Picture:
B/C+ Sound: B/C+ Extras: C Film: C
40 years
ago, many great independent films were being made and many that were not great
were still interesting and ambitious.
This included work by some of the best talents of the day and extended
to England and Europe. This also
included some of the best talents of the day who worked in TV when they would
have already been making motion pictures.
Brian Clemens (who developed The
Avengers), Terry Nation (who developed Doctor
Who, created the Dalek and worked on the last seasons of The Avengers) and Robert Fuest (a
highly distinctive director whose work included The Avengers and the Dr. Phibes films) made the first And Soon The Darkness, in which two
British nurses bike through France and one mysteriously disappears.
The other
is left searching for her and her only clue is an odd stranger who showed up in
the midst of this. The film was not bad,
but even with all that talent, was an above-average thriller that did not meet
its potential. With little fanfare, a
remake was made under the same title and I was interested since I knew if a
goods team was in place, they might be able to pull of a better film. Instead, despite some ambition, they missed
the mark.
This
time, it is the tale of two young ladies (Amber Heard and Odette Yustman)
biking and vacationing in Argentina
(because everyone loves to vacation and bike there!) even participating in a
bike event. Of course, they fall behind
and get stuck trying to catch up and get out.
Of course, this does not happen and while they are enjoying some
sunbathing, have a verbal spat and when one storms off, the other disappears. Then the search begins.
Karl
Urban shows up (with an Ian Ogilvy-like haircut, though Ogilvy was not in this
film, he was in many like it at the time) and plays the stranger and the film
never finds its way beyond thrillers of today, nor do Co-Writer (with Jennifer
Derwingson) Director Marcos Efron have any idea what they have or know what to
do with it. SO instead of knowing how to
take off from the original, they give it a torture porn opening, then a very
tired formula kicks in starting with the girls begin “punished” for having a
semi-nude moment of joy in the sun by being split. From there, we get a few moments of suspense
and lots of filler and boredom in between.
At least the makers spent some money on this, but it never adds up to
nothing more than a slightly better version of everything we have seen
before. Too bad.
The
Blu-rays offer a 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition transfers that is
stylized down a little bit, but is not totally ruined like so many cases of
this of late. Unfortunately, it hurts
the film more than helps it. (The
original was issued in three-strip, dye-transfer British Technicolor prints
which were a little darker than if they had been U.S. Technicolor, but were not
overly dark and Fuest did not have to cheat or hide behind such phoniness.) The anamorphically enhanced DVD is even weaker
and Video Black is a particular issue.
The
Blu-ray’s Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix is not bad, rich like so many have been on
Anchor Bay Blu-ray thrillers, but it has its quiet points to build suspense and
also does not know how to have a breakout soundfield under these
circumstances. The tomandandy score is
integrated well and not bad. The DVD’s
Dolby Digital 5.1 should also be as lively, but seems more compressed than it
should be by comparison.
Extras on
both versions a behind the scenes featurette of the Director’s Video Diary, Deleted
Scenes and a feature length audio commentary by Director Efron, Editor Todd
Miller and Director of Photography Gabriel Beristain, A.S.C., B.S.C., who
sounds like he knows more about this than they do.
Please
note that the original was issued by Anchor
Bay on DVD only back in
2002, but was discontinued and had transfer issues. Hope this gets the original reissued on DVD
and issued on Blu-ray for the first time.
- Nicholas Sheffo
