Another horror film has reached the local screens — and it’s not good news. Like so many horror flicks previously released this year — Clown, Jessabelle, Poltergeist, Demonic — the US-Spanish-Colombian co-production Out of the Dark, directed by Luis Quílez, is as forgettable as it is unnecessary.
Overridden with clichés, over-plotted and far from spooky, Quílez’s debut feature is neither a personal auteur film nor a good genre piece. And to think that three scriptwriters were in charge of developing this supernatural story about Colombian ghosts of children burned alive that seek revenge any way they can.
The fictional town of Santa Clara, Colombia, is the setting for the misfortune faced by Sarah (Julia Stiles) and Paul (Scott Speedman), and their young daughter Hannah (Pixie Davies) who move there to take over a family-owned paper manufacturing plant. Sarah’s father Jordan (Stephen Rea) gives them a large, pricey house by the forest to use as their home. Soon enough, the family will find out about an infamous event from the past: all the children in the area were kidnapped for ransom by the conquistadors. Even though the families in the village paid the ransom as told, the conquistadors didn’t keep their end of the bargain and burned them alive instead.
If there’s one moderately good thing to say about Out of the Dark, that is the ghosts themselves are slightly disturbing: half-seen, dressed in rags, possibly burnt beyond recognition. Even when you can only see their silhouettes stalking the little girl, they somehow convey a certain sense of doom. And that’s it. On second thought, the performance of Julia Stiles is watchable, unlike those of Scott Speedman, Pixie Davies and the rest of the cast.
When Pixie starts running a fever and a severe rash after the ghosts visited her while she was sleeping, she’s taken to Santa Clara Hospital to be examined. At first, the doctor says she sees no signs of illness — dumb Colombian doctors, you know — but then she says she can run some blood tests anyway. The problem is that it will take her weeks to get the results. Perhaps a couple of months. The moronic notion here is that in less developed countries such as Colombia, healthcare is completely inadequate and resourceless. And while that may be partly true, it’s actually truer that blood tests do not take several weeks at all. Healthcare is not nearly in such bad shape in Colombia. Only an insulting Hollywood cliché says that.
There are many other clichés, such as an old local woman, possibly an indigenous, who reveals some secrets with a husky voice and a stern look in her eyes. Remember we’re not talking about self-parody. On the contrary, Out of the Dark intends to be realistic and dramatic, but it’s poorly scripted and tediously directed. One crucial thing in these types of horror films is the frights, which should come hand in hand with suspense and surprise. But in Out of the Dark, the frights are both predictable and clumsily executed. Same thing with way the storyline unfolds: far too contrived and simply too hard to believe.
Production notes
Out of the Dark (US/Colombia/Spain, 2014). Directed by Luis Quílez. Written by Javier Guillón, David Pastor, Álex Pastor. With Scott Speedman, Pixie Davies, Julia Stiles. Cinematography: Isaac Vila. Editing: Bernat Vilaplana. Running time: 92 minutes.
