The Horror Show
Deep in the Darkness
by Colin Theys
I feel like the selection of recent horror movies available on Netflix has become slim. An occasional gem makes it to Netflix but at this point I’ve already seen it. All the other movies are just bleh. Sadly those movies aren’t going to review themselves, so let’s just get on with it. I chose to watch Deep in the Darkness, a 2014 film based on the 2004 book of the same name.
Dr. Michael Cayle and his family move to the small isolated community of Ashborough. Cayle purchased a small practice in said town after the local doctor was killed by an animal in the woods. Almost immediately, the town begins to show its true colors. Michael is taken into the woods by his neighbor Phil, and shows him an old stone altar. Phil tells Michael of an old legend: a long time ago, dating back to prehistoric days, there was a tribe of people who were extremely brutal and violent called the Isolates. The other tribes feared them and eventually made sacrifices to the Isolates to be left alone. Phil tells Michael that he should kill an animal on that altar. Michael refuses.
The town is more or less run by Zellis, an old woman. She holds quite a bit of power and influence over the other people. When Michael refuses to make the sacrifice, the town becomes increasingly aggressive towards the Cayle family. Zellis confronts him and so do the fabled Isolates. She tells him that if Michael wasn’t a doctor that he’d be dead by now. The Isolates need him because years of inbreeding or something has weakened their immune systems and they are susceptible to infection. However, the Isolates won’t leave him alone and people in the town begin disappearing. Can Michael convince his family to leave without raising suspicion in the town?
Alright, now, let’s talk about how stupid this movie is. First of all Zellis needs to speak for the Isolates or something. I would assume that this means they don’t have a grasp on the English language. Somehow, the Isolates know when someone is talking about them, even if people are talking about them in a whisper while someone nearby is covering the sounds by mowing the lawns. So, clearly they have an understanding of the English language but for some reason are unable to read it. Point two, when people talk about them, the Isolates get mad. Even if they are talking about them in a community of people where every single person knows of their existence. Even the neighboring towns know about them and refuse to help the people of Ashborough because of it. Why all the silence then? If it’s not such a secret, who cares if people talk of the primitive tribe of cannibals living in the woods? Also, they kill anyone who talks about the Isolates. Every single thing this movie does contradicts everything else.
The only thing I liked was the plot twist. This paragraph will contain some spoilers so move on if you don’t like those. Alright, so Cristine Cayle was pregnant and this was no secret. It was also pretty obvious that the child wasn’t Michael’s but an Isolate’s. But that wasn’t the plot twist. We also know that Zellis and her family are half-Isolate. I didn’t pay too much attention to this detail until later on. Earlier in the movie Michael asked his wife if she always knew she’d grow up and marry a doctor. She said she always knew since she was a little girl. Here’s the plot twist, at the end of the movie Michael wakes up and his wife and daughter are missing. Then we see the photo of Cristine as a little girl in more detail and the name on the mail box was Zellis. Cristine was a Zellis the whole time. It was foreshadowed brilliantly, and I should have been able to catch it but I didn’t. Her entire life up until this point had been planned; she was meant to marry a doctor and bring him to the town. Mind equals blown.
Interestingly enough, this movie is based on a book of the same name. I didn’t know that prior to writing this review. I don’t really care much for the movie but maybe the book would be more interesting. It’s common knowledge that books are almost always better than the movie. It was influenced by the 1973 made-for-TV film Don’t be Afraid of the Dark. Goblins are much more interesting than primitive cannibals, I’m actually quite interested in that movie and want to check it out.
Back to the book, it also has a sequel. The sequel doesn’t seem to have a Wikipedia page so I would have to read the book to just find out what happens next. The movie seems to have a fairly definitive ending but I’d be curious to see how it’s continued.
I can say that I’ve never heard of director Colin Theys before. It’s surprising considering that he’s got a number of directorial credits under his belt. However, if they are like Deep in the Darkness I can understand why I’ve never heard of any of them. It’s not fair to judge his movies before I’ve seen them, but they may not be good. I can say for fact that I did not like this movie. It was not only self-conflicting and suffered from a bad story, but it ended fairly stupidly. Other than the plot twist there was nothing redeemable about this movie. The acting is okay at best but I never cared about a single character the whole movie. Let’s just face it, prehistoric tribes of primitive cannibals are so boring, we’ve seen this before a dozen times. It more or less ends the same way. It provided nothing new to the formula. I guess it’s safe to say that Deep in the Darkness should have been left in the dark.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS
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