Amber Heard stars in Anchor Bay Films' And Soon The Darkness. Photo Credit: Dario Berman. © 2010 Darkness, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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Co-Executive Producer:
- Mark Jacobs
- Pamela Farkas
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And Soon the Darkness (2010)
Opened: 12/17/2010 Limited
| Limited | 12/17/2010 | |
| Sunset 5/LA | 12/17/2010 - 12/23/2010 | 7 days |
| DVD | 12/28/2010 |
Trailer: Click for trailer
Genre: Thriller
Rated: R for some violence and brief torture.
Synopsis
Stephanie (Amber Heard) and Ellie's (Odette Yustman) vacation to an exotic village in Argentina is a perfect 'girl's getaway' to bask in the sun, shop and flirt with the handsome locals. After a long night of bar-hopping, the girls get into an argument, and Stephanie heads out alone in the morning to cool off. But when she returns, Ellie has disappeared. Finding signs of a struggle, Stephanie fears the worst, and turns to the police for help. But the local authorities have their hands full already - with a string of unsolved kidnappings targeting young female tourists. Sceptical of the sheriff's competency, she enlists help from Michael (Karl Urban), an American ex-pat staying at their hotel. Together they go on a frantic search for Ellie, but Stephanie soon realizes that trusting his seemingly good intentions may drag her farther from the truth. With danger mounting, and time running out, Stephanie must find her friend before darkness falls.
Director's Statement
Introduction
And Soon the Darkness is imagined as a film strongly rooted in psychological terror, unease and the unsettling feeling one gets when displaced and removed from familiarity. From the opening images of two young women riding bicycles along an empty stretch of road in the most stunning natural setting of northern Argentina, the stage will be set. My hope is to put the audience firmly in our protagonist's shoes and have them experience the terror and helplessness of having no understanding of or control over events. This undertone of unease would then be punctuated by moments of intensity that will catch our audience off-guard and have them jumping from and squirming in their seats. My goal is to root the film in Stephanie's experience and put the audience firmly in her shoes. The audience should never be a step ahead of her, so as she searches for Ellie and uncovers clues to her disappearance, it's as if we are walking with her as she experiences new locations or information.
Smart thrillers with interesting characters have usually been reserved for adult audiences, while young audiences get dumbed-down movies. This audience, young as they are, are a smart audience that is very familiar with the suspense genre so the challenge is to make a film that not only gives them a fresh and new experience but also delivers the thrills and scares they expect.
Tone, Atmosphere and Pace
This is to be a film dripping with atmosphere and the sense of the unknown. The audience knows only what our characters know and so they are as lost and vulnerable. The way to do this is to set a tone and pace that at first lulls the audience into a comfort zone and then steadily dials in suspense and dread. Regardless of the levity and non-threatening vibe of the opening scenes of the film, the audience is here to see a suspenseful movie and they know something frightening is just around the corner -- and they are counting on us to give it to them.
Regarding pacing, to throw every scare tactic at the audience from the get-go would dilute the effect later in the film. Those moments will come as promised so the unease factor is ratcheted up in more under-the-skin ways. For example, when characters speak in Spanish -- a language which Stephanie does not speak -- there will be no subtitles, further dislocating her and the audience. By about the midpoint of the film Stephanie realizes that things are not what they seem and that her friend is potentially in real danger -- the stakes have risen dramatically. Stephanie's pursuit of Chucho illustrates that shift, and from that point on we understand she is a solitary girl in serious trouble in a foreign country, far from home and any safety net.
Light (and Darkness) as Character
The idea is to exploit daylight in the sense that everything is visible to Stephanie though not necessarily comprehendible. And as the day progresses and darkness comes, the bright airiness gives way to hard shadows and pockets of the unknown. Finally, the film plunges into absolute darkness (e.g., night time, the black waters of the river, etc.). The aim of this is to explore the themes of darkness and what it means explicitly (bad things will happen come nightfall), physically (a movement from light into darkness), emotionally (when one's worst fears are realized) and even existentially (going places/doing things one never imagines).
