Home Video
Blu-ray Sheds No Light on ‘The Darkness’ [Review]
As much as this pains me to admit, there’s just no getting around it: The Darkness is a huge misfire for Australian horror director Greg McLean (Wolf Creek, The Belko Experiment). Completely devoid of scares or ingenuity on any real level, this lifeless family melodrama could have aired on the Hallmark Channel and nobody would have been the wiser. I mean, hands down, the scaries thing in the movie is its graphic depiction of bulimia.
And, I swear, I’m not even trying to be snarky. I’m a fan of everybody involved in this project, from writers Shayne Armstrong & Shane Krause who broke onto the scene with 2008’s wonderful suburban serial killer flick Acolytes, to producer Jason Blum and actors Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell. It feels like an odd miscalculation from a group of talented folks who should have been able to see the problems a mile away.
So what happened here? Was The Darkness a troubled production? Was it a rushed shoot with too little resources? Was McLean hamstrung by an underdeveloped script?
To anyone interested in the answers to these question, prepare to be disappointed in this week’s Blu-ray release which sheds no light on the story behind the film; a story that I have a feeling is more interesting than the film itself. Which is too bad, because often a great commentary, or series of candid interviews can go a long way to earning a film goodwill with genre fans. Lionsgate’s release of Guillermo del Toro’s Mimic director’s cut comes to mind as an example of this. Allowing del Toro to spill the beans on the troubles he faced on that production changed the narrative on the film and it has something of a new place in the eyes of his admirers.
Unfortunately, McLean and Blum don’t sit down to discuss the film, nor do they show up for even a simple publicity reel. There are no behind the scenes featurettes with the actors or to provide additional information on the aboriginal myths that fuel the film’s premise. Instead we get a couple deleted scenes and an alternate ending which, if it had stayed in the film, would have made the film even worse, essentially killing the film’s message of family unity in the face of great adversity.
Speaking of the myths that fuel the film’s premise, I was on fully on board with the concept of a vacationing family unwittingly bringing something ancient and deadly home with them from holiday. If you’ve ever been to, say, the Catacombs in Paris, you’ll know how blatantly tourists refuse to follow any rules, touching everything and taking pictures when they shouldn’t.
And these dudes *should* have been super scary, right? Right?
Unfortunately, they’re really not. Particularly during the film’s final moments when they sort of just stand there while the heroes dispatch them one by one. For a studio with a track record like Blumhouse, it truly boggles the mind.
At the end of the day, The Darkness is an odd misstep for Blumhouse, as forgettable at home as it was in theatres. Maybe one day we’ll get some insight into what happened, but until then wait until it hits Netflix.
Scream Factory brought Frank LaLoggia’s 1988 Halloween movie Lady in White to Blu-ray several years back, and now Vinegar Syndrome gives the film a 4K Ultra HD upgrade.
Vinegar Syndrome’s Lady in White 4K release is available now and shipping now!
Watch the trailer below and grab your copy from Vinegar Syndrome today.
This limited edition 4-disc 4K UHD/Blu-ray x 3 set comes with a spot gloss hard slipcase + slipcover combo (designed by Dylan Haley), includes a 40-page perfect bound book and is limited to 8,000 units. It is only available on their website and at select indie retailers.
The full Special Features package includes…
- 4-disc Set: 1x 4K Ultra HD (High Bitrate BD100) / 3x Region A Blu-ray
- 4K UHD presented in Dolby Vision High-Dynamic-Range
- Newly scanned & restored in 4K from its 35mm original camera negative
- Presented in three versions: 126-min Pre-Release Director’s Cut (UHD+BD), the 118-min Extended Home Video Cut (BD), and the 113-min Theatrical Cut (BD)
- New group commentary track with writer/director Frank LaLoggia, alongside actors Lukas Haas, Joelle Jacobi, and Len Cariou for the Pre-Release Director’s Cut
- New commentary track with Frank LaLoggia, moderated by Scott Neumyer for the Extended Home Video Cut
- New commentary track with authors Emma Westwood and Stephen A. Russell for the Extended Home Video Cut
- Archival commentary track with Frank LaLoggia for the Extended Home Video Cut
- “Learning How to Fly” (10 min) – an interview with actress Karen Powell
- “A Snapshot in Time” (9 min) – an interview with actress Lisa Taylor
- “Human Touches” (6 min) – an interview with actress Lucy Lee Flippin
- “Still Relevant” (16 min) – an interview with actress Rose Weaver
- “75% Listening, 25% Editing” (9 min) – an interview with editor Steve Mann
- “Welcome to Willowpoint Falls” (6 min) – a location featurette hosted by Benjamin Scrivens, founder of Fright-Rags
- “Dream Talking: Looking Back” – a visual group commentary for the Pre-Release Director’s Cut with Frank LaLoggia, and actors Lukas Haas, Joelle Jacobi, and Len Cariou (103 min)
- Deleted Scenes with introduction and optional commentary by writer/director Frank LaLoggia (36 min)
- Behind-the-scenes footage with introduction and optional commentary by writer/director Frank LaLoggia (16 min)
- Extended behind-the-scenes footage (73 min)
- Introduction from the 20th anniversary dvd release
- Promotional ‘industry sales’ trailer (7 min)
- 40-page perfect bound book with essays by film historians Molly Henery, Mark H. Harris, and Heidi Honeycutt (limited edition only)
- Multiple radio spots
- Theatrical trailer
- Multiple TV spots
- Workprint trailers (7 min)
- Still gallery
- Reversible sleeve artwork
- English SDH subtitles
1962. Nine-year-old Frankie Scarlatti enjoys a homespun childhood in a rustic Western New York town. The entire community gets into the spirit of Halloween, but then two bullies prank Frankie by locking him in his school cloakroom, leaving him trapped for the night. Alone and afraid, his slumber is interrupted when the ghost of a little girl appears, and Frankie witnesses the specter of her murder by an unseen assailant. Later, while recovering at home, the girl’s ghost appears to him again. With help from his older brother, Frankie begins investigating the circumstances of her death. He soon discovers that her murder was one of several unsolved crimes connected to a local child-killer. As the town’s bucolic veneer fades and long-buried secrets and tensions bubble to the surface, all of the clues to the mystery seem to point towards a huge mansion inhabited by a reclusive woman known as “The Lady in White.”
A nostalgia-driven ghost story wrapped within an intricate murder mystery and coming-of-age drama, writer-director-composer Frank LaLoggia’s passion project Lady in White remains one of the most beautiful and original American horror films of the 1980s. Featuring acclaimed actors Alex Rocco (The Godfather), Len Cariou (Executive Decision), and Sydney Lassick (Carrie, The Unseen), it boasts the first starring role by Lukas Haas (Mars Attacks, Inception) as well as breathtaking photography by Academy Award® winner Russell Carpenter (True Lies, The Lawnmower Man). Vinegar Syndrome is honored to bring this genre masterpiece to 4K UHD, newly restored from its original 35mm camera negative and presented in three versions: its pre-release director’s cut, its extended home-video version, and its original theatrical version, along with an abundance of both new and archival extras.
Paul Lê wrote here on Bloody Disgusting back in 2023, “Over the years, fans have described this film as gateway horror, but they liken it more to The Watcher in the Woods than, say, Hocus Pocus or Casper. There are chilling moments that warrant its PG-13 rating.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.