With Austrian funding and a Canadian shoot, first time writer-director Justin P. Lange uses horror and zombie imagery to tell a dark (no pun intended) story about abuse and survival. Starring Nadia Alexander (The Sinner) and Toby Nichols (Iron Fist), The Dark is an unusual film that doesn’t quite come together in the end, but as a feature film debut demonstrates a clear vision and an idiosyncratic approach to storytelling that bodes well for Lange’s future work.
The film opens with a jittery Josef Hofer (Karl Markovics) just trying to get some food and a map to the mysterious Devil’s Den from a cantankerous shop keep. Before he can be on his way though, the television reveals that Hofer is armed, dangerous, and on the run. Which is bad news for the hostile son of a bitch running the store. Hofer winds up in the local “haunted” forest where booby traps puncture his tire, forcing him to check out the nearby “abandoned” house.
Of course, it’s not abandoned at all, and Kofer soon finds himself being chased through the trees by a shadowy figure carrying an axe.
It’s a nice opening, and Lange does a great job building the tension and then suddenly changing up the game as Hofer is dispatched and the living dead girl, Mina, eats him and then discovers Alex in the back of Hofer’s car. Alex has been horribly blinded and is suffering from a case of Stockholm Syndrome and luckily, Mina isn’t like most zombies you find in low-budget first-time feature films.
She is fully conscious and cogent, despite the hideous scars and physical trauma spread across her face. Sensing a kindred spirit in Alex, Mina suddenly starts to remember what it’s like to actually interact with others – to care about others – and this causes a slow but steady return to normalcy for her in a leap of fairy tale logic that is nice so long as you don’t think too hard about it.
Because she’s been killing and eating people in these woods for at least a decade – ever since her alcoholic mom’s lecherous boyfriend raped and murdered her, burying her in the woods outside their home. Sure, she’s an artist and carries around a raggedy old Teddy Bear, but she also carries an axe.
The Dark wants to do a lot with very little and for the most part it does a good job. Nadia Alexander, who was a revelation in the first season of The Sinner, finds ways to actually emote despite the oppressive zombie make-up. Likewise, Toby Nichols plays Alex as extremely damaged beyond just the burns that cover his eyes. Both characters wear these scars as external symbols of the traumatic abuse they’ve been through, but I’m not sure exactly where Lange is going with the theme. The symbolism is muddied as the characters function more like signifiers than real people.
And the film seems to really want us to take this all very seriously.
Ultimately, the film’s fairy tale logic clashes with the sudden bursts of bloody murder and Lange’s refusal to lean into the gory potential of an undead Bonnie and Clyde or a zombie version of Let The Right One In hamstrings the ending, making it feel anti-climactic and dreamlike rather than visceral and powerful. That said, it’s still pretty good for a first-timer and well worth a look if you’re a little tired of traditional zombie fare.