DEEP IN THE DARKNESS (2014)

Studio:       Chiller Films
Director:    Colin Theys
Writer:       John Doolan, Michael Laimo
Producer:  Andrew Gernhard, Zach O’Brien
Stars:     Sean Patrick Thomas, Kristen Bush, Dean Stockwell, Athena Grant, Blanche Baker, Anthony Del Negro, Cara Loften, Ron Komora, Kathleen Huber, Marty Gargle

Review Score:

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Summary:

A doctor moves his family to a quiet country town harboring a sinister secret involving blood sacrifice and a tribe of subterranean savages.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

After the death of her doctor husband Neil, Mrs. Ferris sells her home and the Ashborough medical practice to Dr. Michael Cayle. At his wife Christine’s insistence, Michael moves Christine and their young daughter Jessica from New York to the small town of Ashborough, New Hampshire for a quieter life.

New neighbor Phil Dreighton introduces the Cayles to his grandson Tyler and invites the family to his house for lunch. While using the Dreightons’ bathroom, Michael meets Phil’s wife Rosy, who has a severely scarred face. Later, Michael and Christine agree that the timing is right to have another child.

A package is delivered for the deceased Dr. Ferris. Michael opens it and discovers virus samples ranging from Ebola to the bubonic plague. Michael begins meeting various townspeople as his new patients. Lauren Hunter is strangely flirtatious.

Phil goes hiking with Michael and shows him a stone altar in the forest covered with blood. Phil explains that centuries ago, a breed of wild men known as Isolates populated the area. People make sacrifices to the Isolates to keep their families safe from their savagery. Phil tells Michael that he is expected to make a blood sacrifice on the altar and that it was Phil’s duty to explain the tradition to Michael just as it was explained to Phil by Lady Zellis when the Dreightons first moved to Ashborough. Michael assumes the idea is crazy.

Michael takes Christine and Jessica to a church service to meet the rest of the townspeople. Rosy Dreighton pretends she is meeting Michael for the first time. After the service, Michael observes as his wife is suspiciously spirited away by Lady Zellis. Tyler starts to warn Michael about Lady Zellis before being stopped by Sheriff Andy Godbout’s son AJ. Michael looks for Christine inside the church and Lauren Hunter tries seducing him again. When he spurns her, Lauren cryptically infers that Michael is the only one who can protect her, although she does not specify from what.

Christine tells Michael that she is pregnant, but that in lieu of an OB/GYN, she wants to see the town’s midwife Lady Zellis. Christine begins acting as if she is hiding something from Michael. Michael starts to see signs of an intruder throughout the house and begins having nightmares. Michael hears noises outside and kills a goat that startles him. However, when he goes back to clean up the carcass, the goat is gone.

While Michael is home alone, Lauren shows up covered in blood with her stomach torn open. Michael futilely tries calling for an ambulance only to discover Lauren’s body missing when he returns outside. Sheriff Godbout does not take Michael’s claim of Lauren’s murder seriously. Michael tries driving out of town, but his car will not start. Lauren is then found on the road, her death made to look like an accident.

Michael finds more signs of someone or something stalking his family inside their home. Lady Zellis pays Michael a visit. She cryptically tells him that “they” will be coming for him so that he may deliver a child and if he were not needed, he would already be dead because he did not complete the sacrifice. Michael’s home office is then invaded by feral Isolates, who drag him to their underground caverns where he is forced to deliver the child of a pregnant savage.

Michael visits Phil for answers. Phil says they cannot talk because the Isolates can hear them and that no one will help because fear of the tribe runs so deep. Phil also reveals that the Isolates took his wife Rosy, and left her eyeballs on his nightstand.

Michael begs his wife to tell him what she knows. Christine says she cannot reveal anything for their own safety and infers that Michael should sacrifice their family dog on the woodland altar. Michael attempts to do so, but Jessica interrupts him.

The next day, Michael boards up the windows on his house, although Tyler warns Michael that it won’t keep the Isolates out if they want to find a way in. Later, the Isolates abduct Michael again and force him to kill Phil in the caves.

Tyler confronts Michael about his father’s death and asks for help killing the Isolates. Michael tells Tyler to seek help elsewhere. Tyler tells him that Lady Zellis runs the town and keeps the residents in line with the tea that everyone is forced to drink. Knowing that the Isolates listen to their words, Michael passes Tyler a note about arranging an escape plan.

Michael packs the family’s bags and flees in his minivan with Christine and Jessica. Sheriff Godbout tries stopping them, but Christine runs him over. The Cayles are drawn back to town by Tyler’s screams. Michael finds Lady Zellis cutting Tyler’s chest while he is tied to a chair and Michael threatens her with a blade to escape with Tyler. Everyone flees in the minivan, but Christine crashes into a fallen tree, forcing everyone to retreat to the Cayle home.

The Isolates attack and kill Tyler. While Michael attends to Christine’s injuries, Jessica is abducted. Michael arms himself with a syringe of bubonic plague that he uses to infect the Isolates on his next trip underground. The Isolates die and Michael rescues Jessica. When Michael returns home, he finds Lady Zellis delivering Christine’s baby while surrounded by a handful of townspeople. Christine apologizes to Michael for deceiving him as she gives birth to an Isolate. Later, Michael finds an old photograph of Christine as a child and realizes that she is standing in front of a mailbox labeled “Zellis.”

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Review:

Based on a novel by Michael Laimo, “Deep in the Darkness” seems to take more of its inspiration from author Ira Levin by mixing themes of “The Stepford Wives” and “Rosemary’s Baby” (movie review here) with a dash of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” added for good measure.  That recipe makes for a dish of gradually creeping mystery involving a centuries-old tribe of cave-dwelling savages and a fearful small town dedicated to keeping their existence a secret.

With his family looking for a change, Dr. Michael Cayle leaves behind the big city pace of New York for the quiet rural community of Ashborough, New Hampshire.  The Cayles discover that the country life is more unusual than they imagined when they learn that the one-road town has no cell phone reception, no cable television service, and the sheriff enforces a strict curfew requiring all residents to remain indoors after 8pm.  Why is it that movie characters always discover these things after they sign a lease?  Seems like these are details you might want to be clued into before putting down new roots.

Continuing in the theme of being tinged with visions from other authors, Michael plays Louis Creed while new neighbor Phil channels Jud Crandall.  To the woods they go where a blood-stained stone altar sets the atmosphere for Phil’s tale of feral wild men so feared and revered that to this day, townspeople make sacrifices in their name to be left in peace.  As any sane mind would, Michael assumes Phil’s folktale is a load of rubbish and pays it little mind.  But when his wife begins keeping secrets, the neighbors throw odd leers in his direction, and his house shows regular signs of unidentified visitors, Michael suspects that something evil really is afoot in Ashborough.

By design, the characters of “Deep in the Darkness” never break out of the story.  That isn’t a negative, though.  Instead of personalities overshadowing the narrative, the actors play their parts with the right amount of understatement to keep the tone level, even as it wobbles on a balance beam positioned over a pit of plausibility problems.

Dean Stockwell’s performance epitomizes the above concept.  Rivaling the likes of an Eric Roberts or a Danny Trejo in how briefly he appears onscreen, Stockwell is nonetheless as welcome as ever playing a genial elder with a possibly hidden agenda.  He manages to deliver simple dialogue with mannerisms and subtle inflections suggesting layers in ways that would be impossible for less experienced actors just blandly reciting lines.

Sean Patrick Thomas is well cast as the Cayle’s patriarch.  The Cayles’ family dynamic is straightforward, yet not so sickeningly sweet as to be unbelievably annoying.  It is also appreciated that the film never makes a big issue of the Cayles being an interracial family, except to briefly plant the assumption in Michael’s head that he is regarded as an outsider because of his race, which turns out to not be the case at all.

Rare is the movie that shows the passage of time without relying on a montage or “X Months Later…” text.  “Deep in the Darkness” respects that film is a visual storytelling format and instead moves through its time changes with creative wipe transitions and shots of a ballooning pregnant belly to remind where the story is at in its timeline.  It doubles as a nod to respecting that a viewer can follow along without requiring text in the face or dissolves set to music, too.

This confidence in the audience’s attention is sometimes too generous, however.  How own townsperson fails in her seduction of Dr. Cayle is more than a little clunky in outlining her exact purpose and motive.  A similar puzzlement comes over a late inning reveal of how residents are pacified with a cough-and-you’ll-miss-it reference to iced tea.  This accompanies an additional revelation that “Deep in the Darkness” never goes out of its way to make that a clear detail in the first place.

It is strange how the movie alternately relies on the viewer having a keen eye and then doesn't want anyone looking too closely at all.  The premise of “Deep in the Darkness” isn’t built on thin ice so much as outright warm water.  This is a case where enjoyment of the film is related to how many questions you want to ask and whether or not you really require answers.  Seemingly cut off from the world, how does Ashborough get groceries and supplies for one thing?  And how is it that the Isolates flip between feral and omnipotent depending on what the scene calls for?  Anyone unable to come up with 100 additional “wait a minute” and “what about” questions just isn’t paying attention.

There are enough holes to make “Deep in the Darkness” a bumpy ride.  The film requires a forgiving audience to take the turns with shock-absorbing struts designed to cushion bumps by willfully disregarding that they exist.  Choose to do so and there is enough to appreciate in the acting and in the idea to make for an entertaining spin in territory familiar, yet intriguing as a creepy mystery.  “Deep in the Darkness” won’t have you reaching for a pen and paper to write mom a letter, but it is a better thriller from Chiller Films than the usual beast beneath the sea/trees/earth mill runner.

Review Score:  70

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