Film Review: Out Of Darkness

My take on the stone age horror/thriller set in the European Palaeolithic

I’m late to the game in reviewing the British ‘palaeolithic horror film’ Out Of Darkness, but better late than never. There are very few half-way decent films set in the distant past, so I was keen to watch this, trying to suspend my archaeological disbelief and enjoy the film.

**Spoiler alert** don’t read further if you don’t want plot details

The premise of the film is simple, stark and bold. Six humans arrive on the shores of a new land, having lost everything during a harrowing voyage. The group consists of a male leader - Adem - his younger brother Geirr, his 11 year old son Heron and an elder man named Odal. Accompanying them are Adem’s pregnant wife/mate Ave and an unrelated ‘stray’ girl called Beyah. Their joy quickly turns to fear as they realise that the new land is cold, bleak and unproductive. There are no animals in the entire film from my recollection, which is certainly a choice given the time period. The group aim for a series of mountains looking for shelter, but are forced to camp in the open as they make their way across the unforgiving terrain.

They soon realise that they are not alone, and signs of some other beings are found, including a mammoth or elephant kill site. Then, in the dead of night, around the campfire, Heron is snatched into the all-consuming darkness, resulting in a chase which causes the death of most of the group. The tension is built through a musical score layered with eerie groans and heavy percussion. The signs point the hunters towards the thick pine forest, somewhere they have steadfastly avoided going thus far. The film strips back all the technological wonders of today, leaving the protagonists with just a few spears, pieces of flint and only their skills to make a fire and stay alive. Soon they realise that they are being hunted by something much stronger and more adept than themselves, and the bodies begin to mount.

It’s clear to me that the filmmakers did their homework, and tried to work in elements of archaeological findings from the era, including bone rondelle children’s toys, birch-bark tar, flint blades and so on. They also created a new language for them to speak (sounded very Arabic influenced to my ears), which added another layer of alienation, helping reinforce that these were very different people to ourselves. They could have leant more heavily on much of the superstitious ritualisms which accompany animistic societies, with their taboos and constant negotiations with the living world, but superstition does play its part. I know that there have been both complaints and praise that they cast black and darker-skinned people for the roles, but I think even here the film is generally faithful to the archaeology. My impression is that they carefully chose actors that look neither typically sub-Saharan African nor Caucasian, and since we have no modern Aurignacian Palaeolithic people to use as actors, I think the result is fairly decent.

The horror elements of the film certainly ratchet up once they enter the woods, and they become the hunted, backed up against their tiny campfire, with no food and no chance of sleep. I won’t spoil the entire plot, but the feeling of desperation, of vulnerability, particularly of pregnant women and anyone weaker than a fully developed male hunter, is brought to the fore. How can you fight something stronger than you when you can’t see in the dark and don’t have any weapons? What can you eat when you’re starving except the dead?

Finally though when the enemy is unmasked the energy of the film changes completely. For the last quarter of the film it shifts from a stone age slasher to a modern morality tale, an unwelcome one when the film has worked so hard to separate you from the world of today. The demonic hunter is revealed to be a Neanderthal, a scared Neanderthal. The captured child was in fact lovingly cared for in a warm cave, and the film emphasises how human arrogance and fear led to unnecessary violence. Not a desirable ending in my view, and it spoiled the previous mood of primeval terror and amoral predation. However, others liked it and I wouldn’t let it stop you enjoying the film.

Overall I think the film did very well with such a stripped back approach, relying on the natural world and the basic instinctual fears of the darkness, hunger, of being stalked to drive the horror. The archaeological elements were generally done well and the premise is rich in possibilities - new humans, old Neanderthals. It raised the interesting question of whether small groups of around ten people could or did attempt to strike out and colonise new territory? How would those group dynamics work? For this film we were spared a minimal of contemporary gender politics, with a clear sense of Adem’s authority over everyone in the group, and the role of the ‘spare female’ as another wife, almost a touch ham-handed but a dynamic that again pushes on the primitive.

Maybe as a Halloween season treat you should watch Out Of Darkness, let me know what you think of it in the comments?