Darkness Rising is not a good movie. I saw it over a year ago because it was about to expire on Netflix, and I am wincing as I am spending far too much, $2.99, to rewatch it for you on Amazon Prime. (You: I did not ask you to do that. Me: Shut up.) Most of the acting is not good. There is zero chemistry. The way that the story depicts human interaction is unrealistic and ridiculous. The premise has probably been executed better elsewhere, but the mythology behind the story is intriguing. The film just drops the ball and never makes it work. I would love if another filmmaker redid it-preferably a better writer with more money and vision such as Richard Stanley or Panos Cosmatos. Even Banshee Chapter, which may not be visually distinctive, but had a solid story with a cleverly structured narrative, succeeded on all levels without the benefit of a lot of special effects.
Darkness Rising is about Maddy, a woman who revisits her childhood home with her cousin, Izzy, who is like a sister, and Jake, her philosophy student boyfriend (first sign that she does not run from danger), for the first time since her mother murdered her family. The most recognizable actor is Katrina Law, who plays Izzy. Law is famous for her appearance as Nyssa al Ghul, the Daughter of the Demon, in Arrow, and she is badass with a dry sense of humor so it is possible that she got me in this mess, but I will not blame her because it does not take much for me to watch a horror movie. A lot of reviewers need to hang their head in shame for mistakenly crediting Law as playing Maddy. I know that it is a bad movie, but it does not mean that you have provide wrong information.
If Darkness Rising has a problem, it is in the belief that a house would remain untouched for over two decades after a murder occurred there. That house is going on the market or being razed so the land could be used for something else. For people who saw the movie and want to write me about how the supernatural plot undercuts my point, please don’t, you are wrong and did not understand the ending. The house is not always active. Children are expensive. You may happily raise a relative’s child, but you would probably sell that house or at least rent it out to fund taking care of the kid. Also blood turns brown with time. Why wouldn’t the house want people to come back earlier? Does it have a type or is a completist like me?
Because the writers know that all horror really evokes a latent fear that we do not consciously articulate. Darkness Rising attempts to add texture to its cheap jump scares by implicitly referencing one fear of abuse survivors that they will become abusers. The main character is in a serious relationship and at a turning point. She is afraid of becoming her mother. Many survivors of abuse get triggered when they hit certain life markers. This idea should have worked unfortunately the lack of character development undercuts the successful allusion to the real horror underlying the story. The revelation about characters are made too late in the story for it to be effective. The story gets preoccupied about the existence of a family member when it should have prioritized teasing out Maddy and Jake’s story more. Also it further distracts from the main course when it shifts to Jake’s experience with abuse. Instead we should have spent more time on Maddy’s fears about becoming a mother. Gendered assumptions about women just automatically being mature and able to be good mothers is just one side of a coin that when flipped, reveals the other side that is filled with anxiety about actually being a mother.
Darkness Rising’s filmmakers made a crucial mistake in the way that it leaned on traditional haunted house tropes when it is not a haunted house story. Such a misdirect, intentional or not, can irritate viewers. The majority of the visuals felt derivative and suited a television anthology horror series than an actual movie. It was just as scary as It: Chapter Two, which means not at all. Movies such as Banshee Chapter and Color Out of Space are a unique blend of horror, sci fi and mystery, and it was as if the filmmakers did not even understand their material.
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Darkness Rising has great bones. The house is actually the physical manifestation of an older force referred to as She. She has access to people’s memories and can alter people’s senses-what they see and hear, but She is stronger at certain times than others and has the most influence on people inside of it. There are times when the house cannot be seen from the outside. She infects the inhabitants, which gradually makes them suicidal or into murderers so the house can move through time and space. Of course, when the infected warn the people inside the house, they are confused to which She is being referred to-Maddie’s murderous mother or Maddie. Nope, She is an ancient supernatural being, and they figure it out too late.
When people become possessed, She shows them more than they can process. Some people take more convincing than others to bend to her will. They are compelled to gouge out their eyes in the hopes that they can stop seeing, which enables them to see even more than what they could perceive before with human eyes. Once blinded, they say, “I can see everything,” which is very Lovecraftian. They go mad and try to kill themselves, but only become another vessel like the house. It is clear that Maddy has always been infected, which is why she returns to the house at the right time. Maddy survived, but never truly escaped unscathed. When Maddy sings the rhyme and mimes patty cake, she changes one line to “Find the key and open the door,” which is what the house wants. The key is that five people must die so the house can move.
The Law of Fives is allegedly a tenet of Discordianism, which I know nothing about and apparently started in the mid twentieth century as possibly a parody religion. The goddess of disorder and being, Eris/Discordia, was born pregnant, which may explain why Maddy and her mom are most susceptible to her influence. Without five deaths and one survivor to stay with her, eventually her physical manifestation on our plain of existence would decay and die, and She would be trapped in her realm. With the five deaths, She gets to be reborn in another time and place. Why does she disappear? Aneris/Harmonia, the sterile goddess of order and non-being, apparently is jealous so she makes things disappear or die. Shrug. What happens when six people die? Because it seems as if Maddy could possibly be dead at the end of the movie, not just killed her unborn baby. Order plus Disorder, which are manmade illusions, equals Chaos! OK. Whatever.
I appreciate that Darkness Rising is trying to retell a story that is not well known, but it needed a lot of work. The dead brother needed to be completely cut. Sorry Law, you were the best part of the movie, but it made more sense for it to just be Jake and the surprisingly pregnant Maddy in there with Jake as the victim. I admit that I love seeing a woman kick ass and take down everyone to protect herself and the baby, but since she was most susceptible to the house from prior exposure, it would have made more sense for her to slowly give in to She, not use the possession tropes used in the film though they were the best parts, then have her infect Jake with the same speech about this occurring infinitely and as he is succumbing, keep the scene with her mother whispering in her ear then stabbing herself. The three final deaths should have been Jake, Maddy and their unborn baby thus she could complete what her mother and father could not. It would be an anti-perfect family.