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Summary
- The trailer for Out of Darkness is excellent and effectively sets the narrative and tone without giving away too much.
- The survival horror film takes place 45,000 years ago and follows a group of humans fighting for survival against more than just nature.
- Out of Darkness has been praised for its authenticity, including the use of a bespoke language called Tola, and has received positive reviews from critics.
A trailer has been released for Bleecker Street’s upcoming historical horror thriller, Out of Darkness, and it’s excellent. The two-minute video above informs us of the general narrative and the aesthetic tone without actually giving away too much, an anomaly in this era of spoiler-heavy trailers which basically detail an entire movie. The survival horror film follows a group of humans in the Upper Paleolithic era, 45,000 years ago, who learn that they’re fighting for survival against more than just nature and the elements.
The full synopsis for Out of Darkness reads as follows:
“A small boat reaches the shores of a raw and desolate landscape. A group of six have struggled across the narrow sea to find a new home. They are starving, desperate, and living 45,000 years ago. First they must find shelter, and they strike out across the tundra wastes towards the distant mountains that promise the abundant caves they need to survive. But when night falls, anticipation turns to fear and doubt as they realize they are not alone. Terrifying sounds suggest something monstrous at large in this landscape, something that could kill or steal them away. As relationships in the group fracture, the determination of one young woman reveals the terrible actions taken to survive.”
Out of Darkness is directed by Andrew Cumming and is his feature film debut after making several shorts and directing UK television series like River City, Clique, Cold Feet, and Payback. Kit Young, Chuku Modu, Iola Evans, Safia Oakley-Green, Luna Mwezi, and Arno Luening star in the film, which is set to release in U.S. theaters February 9th, 2024, after being nominated for five British Independent Film Awards (and winning Breakthrough Performance for Safia Oakley-Green). The film was originally titled The Origin, but the title was changed in October.
A New Language Was Created for Out of Darkness
According to Deadline, “the movie was shot on location in the Scottish Highlands with the use of a bespoke language called Tola, which was developed specifically for the project by a linguist and an archaeologist.” The language is somewhat derived from Basque, which is the only surviving Paleo-European language that’s spoken indigenously throughout Europe.
That’s one of many qualities toward the authenticity of Out of Darkness, which has been universally praised by critics after screenings at the BFI London Film Festival, Fantastic Fest, and others. Anton Bitel of the BFI itself writes, “If the film is full of the woodlands, caves and shadows that form our species’ primal fears, it is also, like Quest for Fire and Prey, literally primitive in its settings, delivering ur-horror that is the template (and origin) of a future genre.” At the moment, the film holds a 94% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
You can see Out of Darkness in theaters Feb. 9th, 2024.
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