Out of Darkness (2022)

Following their strong, arrogant prick of a leader Adem (Chuku Modu) a small splinter group of a stone age tribe of early humans have crossed a large body of water to find new, hopefully better lands full of game and cosy caves, or so is the picture apparently gained through visions Adem paints of the place. The group consists of Adem’s pregnant mate Avé (Iola Evans), his brother Geirr (Kit Young), his son Heron (Luna Mwezi), old guy with a whole sackful of chips on his shoulder Odal (Arno Lüning) and stray outsider Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green), there to provide whatever is needed.

That new land full of game and green grass of Adem’s imagination, nay, conviction, is rather less pleasant than advertised. Food sources seem to be scarce, as is shelter. One can’t help but notice these particular hunters and gatherers apparently don’t really forage for things very thoroughly. Stones are most definitely left unturned, so the complete absence of game is an even bigger problem here than it would be for more competent groups.

This isn’t going to be the tribe’s only problem for very long, though, for something dangerous is lurking in the shadows, stalking the group and picking them off one by one. Adem’s promised new land might very well eat them all, as promised lands have the habit to.

Andrew Cumming’s Out of Darkness is in many aspects a very typical stone age adventure movie, in so far as it absolutely mirrors the interests and fears of its own time much more than it does attempt an actual portray of stone age life. The difference is that, where, say, the late 60s/early 70s version of the stone age was a world of deeply silly adventure and fur bikinis, this version is mostly there to teach its audience valuable lessons about the evils of patriarchy, the human tendency to fear and hate the different and the unknown (though, given what the unknown does to our protagonists out of its own fear of the unknown, I can’t blame them for their reactions to it as much as the film does), and that a woman’s body belongs to herself.

All very worthwhile things to speak and think about of course, but also, one can’t help but think, not things actual stone age people would have wasted much of a thought on, unless you want to argue that the inner life of Grok the cave woman is basically the same as that of Inga the modern woman.

However, as there was absolutely nothing wrong with the old fur bikini movies using the far past as their adventure playground, there is also not much wrong about a contemporary movie using the same past to explore its own interests. Well, it could be a bit more subtle about it from time to time – the awkward post-climax voiceover provided so the most stupid audience members understand what the film is talking about really is a bridge too far for me – but often, its putting contemporary troubles into the past does what this approach is clearly meant to do: put the evils of a particular kind of masculinity, and how it feels to be at the receiving end of it into a clearer, more brutal form. This makes it easier to understand its victims by helping us empathize with them more clearly and lets us thrill to the moment when they regain – or gain for the first time – agency.

It does help the film’s case as well that it is rather good at portraying what I assume to be one of the most basic of human fears – being lost in the dark, stalked by something whose nature appears so alien it might very well not be natural, of starving and being very much alone in a seemingly empty world, thrown together with a handful of people who are only interested in the use you can be to them.

Particularly the first two acts are full of scenes that most certainly aren’t believable portrayals of actual stone age life, but feel true to what we imagine it might have felt like in its most dramatic and horrifying moments, the horrors of staring into the darkness, something invisible staring back at you.

Thus, Out of Darkness often feels like the cross of stone age adventure and horror movie I didn’t know I needed before.