And Soon the Darkness



Stephanie and her friend Ellie are on a group biking trip in Argentina when they decide to strike out on their own during the last couple days to do some personal sightseeing. Some poor personal decisions and one missed bus home later, and Stephanie and Ellie end up having a bit of a tiff and separate for a little while to cool off. But when Ellie doesn’t meet back up with her for lunch as planned, Stephanie goes out searching for her, only to find a couple scattered possessions where they had previously split up. Now convinced something is horribly wrong, Stephanie enlists the help of another American and the local police officer for assistance. But they seem to each have their own questionable motives for “helping”, convincing Stephanie that it’s going to be up to her and her alone if she ever hopes to find her friend.


What? You’re saying he doesn’t look trustworthy? Perish the thought.

And Soon the Darkness is an American-Argentinian co-production from 2010, and is a remake of the 1970 English film of the same name. Now, for comparison’s sake, I try to make sure I’ve seen the originals before I watch any of these remakes, as that seems only fair. And I am pretty sure I did see the first film before, because the plot for it seems extremely familiar. But that was ages ago so, full disclosure: my memory is a bit hazy. For the most part though, they end up being pretty similar to each other, minus a location and ending change, in an effort to keep things from being too predictable.



One of the things I do really remember about the original is that it took its sweet-ass time getting started, and as this seems to be an impressively faithful remake, this film starts out much the same. You have to wait a good 34 minutes before anything really happens and Ellie finally gets her dumb ass abducted. Which may sound a bit mean, but with how slow the movie was moving up to that point it’s honestly a relief when it finally happens, because that’s the sign that the plot is finally going to get going. Which is true, but only partially, because after that the film then spends the next third plodding along, slowly building up the mystery and tension as Stephanie searches for answers and encounters a bunch of suspicious people for the viewer to worry about, before finally revealing everything and picking up in the final act. So basically, don’t expect this little thriller to be all that action packed until the end. Like its predecessor it’s aiming to be a slow, simmering tension builder more than anything. Except that instead of the “surprise” ending of the original, the ending here is much longer and actually does have action, and the first part is terribly dull and irritating, thanks in part to the film’s decision to make one of the gals we’re supposed to care about as annoying as they possibly could.


Don’t look at me like that! It’s true!

Truly, while I do remember the ladies having a dumb, petty fight in the original, I don’t remember the abductee in the original film being nearly as infuriating as she was here. And honestly, that is a choice I really don’t understand. Because up to the point she gets abducted, the movie pretty much spends most of its time firmly establishing that Stephanie is the responsible, sensible one, and that Ellie is the naive, thoughtless (and occasionally bitchy) idiot who makes such poor choices that she’s basically begging to be abducted. And that is one hell of a CHOICE, because clearly the movie wants us to believe that Stephanie (and by extension the audience) should care about Ellie, and yet it seems to be going out of its way to make her as obnoxious as humanly possible. She ridicules Stephanie multiple times, tries to hook her up to some random dude she shows mild interest in at a bar, then sneaks into the men’s room to make a pass at that very same guy, picks up a separate guy and pretty much ditches Stephanie for him within seconds, then wakes Stephanie up at 3am because she decided to bring this rando back with her to their shared room, is then too drunk to care when he starts getting violent, leaving Steph and another hotel guest to deal with him, and THEN has the nerve to ridicule her friend again the next day, this time regarding her love life (bitch, please.)


You clearly have your own problems, don’t judge others.

Now, like I said, my memory isn’t 100%, but in the original I think the ladies just had a disagreement about their itinerary. But here I swear it’s like they decided to give Ellie some of the most infuriatingly toxic traits they could think of, both as a friend and as a travel companion. Why am I supposed to care so much about this person? Why does Stephanie care so much about her? Why are they even friends? They barely seem like they get along, let alone like each other enough to risk their lives for one another. I mean, come on, was it really so hard to make it look like these two actually liked one another? Or did the writers actually believe that the criticism, personal endangerment, and backstabbing were legitimate hallmarks of close female friendships? I get that being a bestie reserves the right to call out your friend for being a dumbass when needed, and I’m not saying that Stephanie was all sunshine and roses and shit, but I just don’t get the rest of the writer’s thought process regarding this decision. Like, at all.


How did the two of you even plan this trip together without killing each other first?

The other downside of the film is that the plot itself is painfully predictable. You can, and likely will, be able to foresee what’s going to happen a good 5-10 minutes before it transpires, and often during the really important parts. Like, “Oh, hey, looks like they made it to the truck. It’s not gonna start now, is it?… Nope… And now the villain has disappeared. So he’ll miraculously reappear and throw something through the window now, yes?… Ding! Ding! Ding! A WINNER IS ME!” It’s just pitiful, really.

And it also doesn’t help that just about every character Stephanie encounters and asks for help, is clearly an untrustworthy asshole. The least the filmmakers could have done would have been to make at least a couple of them seem trustworthy so that we could question their motives or something and let the film retain some mystery. Maybe make their betrayal a surprise? But no. They’re all clearly dicks from the get-go. So when they ultimately do something dick-ish, it comes as zero surprise. Which means when they finally get to the “twist” ending you feel absolutely nothing, because the second the character stepped on screen you’re sitting on your couch pointing at him like that Leonardo Decaprio meme and going “That’s them! That’s the guy!” So any build-up they had been trying for feels totally pointless.



The one bright spot the movie has in its favor, is that the powers that be did do an excellent job in putting it together. The acting is good, the sound is good, the lighting is good, the choreography is good and the cinematography is absolutely excellent. So on a technical level, the movie does a great job. And it also doesn’t hurt that they shot the whole thing in Argentina, meaning there’s a lot of pretty scenery to look at too. So, beyond a couple of scenes where they clearly de-saturated all the color except for blue (for some reason), the film looks great and doesn’t have any noticeable visual hiccups.




Seriously, what were they thinking here? And what bombed out ruin were they filming in?

I don’t know why, but I wanted to like And Soon the Darkness more than I did. Because really, I think it’s the perfect kind of film to base a remake on. Not a good or “classic” film, but one that had a good idea behind it and was originally okay, but had definite room for improvement. I mean, ultimately I think what they ended up with was still a perfectly fine film, but it easily could have been better. Like, much, MUCH better. But it’s not, making it pretty on-par with the original. Oh well. Though I will say that I think it is better than the abysmal 17% score I see that it currently has on Rotten Tomatoes. I suspect that’s probably in part due to all the Amber Heard hate, and less to do with the movie itself. Because beyond the annoying predictability and that ONE character, most of the film is decent. So if you need an easy thriller to watch or put on in the background, then you could do worse than this…. But you could also do a lot better.

And Soon the Darkness is available on a variety of streaming services.

And Soon the Darkness is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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