Out of Darkness (2022)

"A Grim Slice of Pre-History"

After premiering at the London Film Festival and its subsequent cinema release, Andrew Cumming's grim tale of life in prehistoric times gets a Blu-ray release from Signature.

45 000 years ago. A small disparate group of humans are searching for a new home across a forbidding and unyielding landscape. In the distance lies a mountain and the promise of warm caves to live in. But to get there they're going to have to get through a thick forest that may well harbour monsters.

OUT OF DARKNESS boasts some fantastic locations (courtesy of Gairloch in Scotland), atmospheric photography and a constant dark and doom-laden atmosphere. Occasional scenes of horror, such as the discovery of a mammoth that has been forced off a cliff by something, all add to the intrigue. Unfortunately the story never resolves things like this satisfactorily. 

Tola, the made-up language the characters speak throughout (and which is subtitled so don't worry) is a very nice touch, which is why it's even more of a shame that the same level of attention hasn't been paid to the appearance of the tribespeople. We never see the group's barber but there must be one to maintain those male hairless chins and neat pencil moustaches, never mind the fashionably close-cut scalps. The skins everyone wears appear to have been run up on a sewing machine as well. 

And therein lies the biggest problem with OUT OF DARKNESS. If it were for not for the title card at the beginning telling us we're in the past, it would reasonable to assume we are actually watching the story of some modern-day university experiment. Halfway through you almost expect someone to whip out a mobile phone to call for help after things have gone pear-shaped. If you want this sort of thing to be believable you do have to make your prehistoric people more convincing than the rock people in Hammer's ONE MILLION YEARS BC (1966), something which unfortunately OUT OF DARKNESS resolutely fails to do. And in the end, despite some good intentions here, that's what ultimately sinks it. The Blu-ray contains no extras. Here's the trailer:

OUT OF DARKNESS is out on UK Blu-ray from Signature Entertainment now.