“Out of Darkness” (2023) is set 43,000 B.C., i.e. the Old Stone Age in an unknown coastal land with a nearby forest. A group of six travel to an unfamiliar land in search of a new home teeming with food, but their destination is not uninhabited. The remains of savaged, massive prey are littered on the landscape. After one of the travelers disappears, the remaining group tries to stay alive while searching for their missing member, but hunger and fear begins to sow discord within the group as this mysterious native of unknown origin, natural or supernatural, stalks them. Will they survive the “monster?”
Adem (Chuku Modu), the leader of the group, rides high on just getting to their destination safely and assumes that he can handle any obstacle that stands in his way. Everyone obeys him even when they doubt him because of his physical prowess. His always loyal, younger brother, Geirr (Kit Young, who was acting up a storm by puking and ugly crying complete with snot), has his eye on Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green), who is the “stray” of the group and seems to reciprocate. Odal (Arno Luning), the advisor and eldest in the group, calls out Adem for bringing her and doubts that it was out of charity, but pragmatic reasons other than foraging. Adem’s most recent mate, Ave (Iola Evans), is pregnant and takes Beyah under her wing in teaching her how to be a woman in this tribe, but Beyah questions Ave’s reassurances that gender norms are awesome, especially as Ave suffers under the physical strain and toll of travel. Heron (Luna Mwezi), Adem’s son and only living heir, is Adem’s favorite, but under the strain of their voyage, even Adem is snapping at his beloved son.
The six travelers’ native country is never revealed, but they speak a fictional language, Tola, which Daniel Anderson created from Basque, a language that mixes French and Spanish. It is audacious to make a less than ninety-minute movie marketed for popular consumption and require subtitles, which normally loses a lot of viewers who do not want to read their movies. The cast is various shades of brown, people of color or just great tanners. It is an interesting creative choice to have brown people exhibit colonizer behavior, but hey, brown people get employed so (tentative) yippee….?
The opening scene, a group of people huddled in front of a fire, initially seems like a close-knit community. A bedtime story serves as a prose dump to fill in their collective backstory, reveals the tension within the group and sets the stage for the impending terror that they feel before any feasible threat rears its head. They are afraid of the unknown and leaving everything they know. Adem sees his community as his servants, extensions of his greatness. Even in their obedience, the individuals in the group buck against how Adem treats them—enough to grumble, but not enough to act collectively and resist him. Their fear makes them rely on him since he has the most certainty. Of course, it is only a matter of time before vibes are insufficient in the face of actual danger. Instead of abandoning their assigned societal roles, each of them adhere to them in the hope that it will aid them in seizing power instead of eschew the concept altogether. Theoretical roles do not keep you safe.
Director and cowriter Andrew Cumming’s debut film looks epic. The Scottish landscape is indomitable and dwarfs the sparse number of people who traverse it; thus capturing the psychological atmosphere of their helplessness in the face of such oversized odds. Cumming nails the atmosphere with fog swallowing Adem’s visibility or the Northern Lights thrumming overhead, but I watched the screener at home on a desktop screen so some night scenes are indiscernible. It is probably gorgeous on the big screen. With a great concept, Cumming and his fellow cowriters Ruth Greenberg and Oliver Kassman’s debut feature narrative loses steam in the last act after revealing too much about the demon who has been stalking them. Never show the nemesis until the final act because it leaches all tension from “Out of Darkness.”
If you watch a lot of movies, then the twist will not be a surprise, and while it has horror elements, do not expect a horror movie. It is later revealed that Beyah is the one who makes the fire every night so her lowly status does not reflect merit. Her ambiguous role in the group gives her an advantage as an outsider because she has been surviving on her own for awhile. It is never revealed how she became a stray. She is the most relatable member of the group and a terrific audience proxy since she is almost as clueless as the viewer regarding the group dynamics and established rules, Beyah and the viewer are learning together and share mixed reactions to the status quo. Do not get too attached to the idea that she is a final girl. Life in the prehistoric era is full of surprises.
The story is not about the monsters outside, but the demons within, and how people lose their community and themselves when they are afraid. It is about the human condition, and how easy it is to rationalize away others’ humanity under pressure. They are hungry, isolated, and afraid with Chekhov’s pointy sticks. It is not going to end well. While I love a movie with a moralizing lesson, it is less fun when it gets spelled out in painful detail during the denouement. Only “The Usual Suspects” (19950 wore it best. Even “Saltburn” (2023) could not stick that landing once it treated the audience like idiots. Humanity may not be doing well lately, but have we become so dumb that these reveal explanations are necessary. The last third becomes a slog of disappointment as the momentum grinds to a halt.
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The demon is just a Neanderthal couple trying to save the kid, but if you kidnap a kid and kill the father, it is going to lead to misunderstandings, and people may attack you. It does not help that the lighter skinned Neanderthals dress as if they were fans of “The Predator” franchise and borrowed the alien’s fashion choices. When the Homo Sapien Six turn into five, two team up to kill Beyah, but when Beyah gets away, they kill each other, which just leaves Beyah and her boo wannabe, who needs her more than she needs him. The only thing that he may get right is not eating his brother because it would be really embarrassing to turn cannibal, and if there is an afterlife, see him a couple of days later and awkwardly explain.
Instead each of them try to use their adherence to their assigned societal roles to grab power instead of eschew the concept since it is useless in the face of actual danger.
“Out of Darkness” wants us to feel horrified at the Homo Sapiens because they are awful people and learn not to declare war over fear, which is a laudable lesson, but I’m still a bit salty over the people of color being portrayed as the worst for invading the otherwise peaceful Neanderthals, i.e. the lighter people. I call it the “Concussion” effect where people of color are depicted as being biased and needing to be rebuked for behavior that the majority has historically exhibited. It serves two functions: stigmatizing people of color without relying on customary stereotypes so the filmmaker cannot be accused of racism and making the majority audience feel superior since they do not have to grapple with more historically accurate depictions which will make them feel defensive and down.
On the other hand, when Adem started rebuking his kid instead of engaging in gentle parenting and explaining that he wants his son to be careful because he wants him to be safe, the accuracy in Black parenting is undeniable. Also Geirr actually says, “Do not split up,” which may be the Blackest thing to say in a film purporting to be a horror movie. Soooooooo, I may have to let it go.