Abi (Makenna Guyler) is accompanying her sister Lilly (Mari Beaseley) to the hen party of one of Lilly’s friends. Because it’s apparently cheaper to fly out to get drunk than simply get drunk in the UK, the thing takes place in what I will from now on call Unnamed Eastern European Country (UEEC). Abi’s a bit of a party pooper, according to her sister, for a very bad experience that would have turned out even worse if she hadn’t found a very useful propensity for violence in herself, has made her rather careful when it comes to letting herself go completely.
The morning after all drinks are drunk and puke and other bodily fluids have been removed, the sisters get into their car to make their way to the airport the flight’s gonna be leaving from. Alas, Lilly has broken their car’s satnav while drunk, and Unnamed Eastern European Country has no cell service available anywhere, apparently. People don’t seem to live there, either. So, eventually, the sisters find themselves stranded in the deep dark woods of UEEC at night. Which would be bad enough by itself, but they have somehow managed to find the monster infested deep dark woods. Well, at least there are some other people with British accents with the same problems around.
For a film with as many flaws as it has, Nicholas Winter’s (who is also responsible for the script) A Dark Path is still a perfectly watchable little horror movie. While the film is unwilling or unable to situate its sister characters in anything that feels even like the horror movie version of an actual place – you’d need details and specificity for that where the script uses vague hand-waving motions – its character writing isn’t half bad, turning out a pair of sisters that seem flawed yet likeable in a believable enough manner. As always, this secures the film at least some viewer interest in the fate of these characters, not exactly turning things extremely but at least somewhat interesting.
The two leads, particularly Guyler who has to carry most of the second half of A Dark Path alone, are certainly the best thing about the film, providing tension where the script and the direction can’t quite on their own, and making the most out of the moments when the script actual contains concrete emotional beats.
The film’s pretty well structured too, clearly not believing in filler and coming in at the 75 minutes its simple plot needs.
Rather less great is the utterly terrible monster suit. To be fair, the film keeps the thing out of sight for as long as it can, but it still looks shoddy even when only shown as a shadow, with suit acting and sound design to match, making the third act less convincing as the acting and Winter’s capable enough suspense direction deserve.
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