When an abused woman flees with her son to her family's disused
farmhouse, they're menaced by a supernatural presence.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Patrick Rea
Starring: Sarah McGuire, Laurie Catherine Winkel, Patrick McGee, Paige Maria, Meagan Flynn, John
Thomson
In recent years I've seen a few horror movies that might arguably have
worked better if they excised their supernatural elements and functioned as
grounded thrillers instead. Given its premise - an abused woman hides with
her son in a haunted house - I feared that might be the case with
writer/director Patrick Rea's They Wait in the Dark. Would the thriller plot of a woman fleeing her abusive partner clash with
the horror elements? I'm happy to report that the two strands work in tandem
here, building to a satisfying entangling of the two seemingly disparate
plots in the climax.
Following a flashback that sees a young Amy standing over her mother's
bloody corpse laid out on a bed, we cut to the present, where the adult Amy
(Sarah McGuire) and her adopted son Adrian (Patrick McGee) are
sleeping rough in backrooms of truck stops and cheap motels. Amy sports a
nasty gash in her abdomen and reassures her son that his other mom, Judith
(Laurie Catherine Winkel), won't find them. Amy's plan is to hide out
in her childhood home, a remote farmhouse she never told Judith about.
Arriving there via a last leg lift from Amy's old friend Jenny (Paige Maria), Amy finds that the old house has become a haven for partying teens
seemingly familiar with the story of how her mom was murdered by her father,
who later passed away in prison. The word "murderer" is daubed on a wall,
the house is littered with empty beer cans, and there's a pentagram
surrounded by candles in the basement.
After lighting some of the candles, Adrian begins seeing a presence in the
house, which eventually begins to physically attack Amy, who later wakes
with no recollection of what happened. Meanwhile, Judith is making her way
closer to the fugitives, showing strangers a photo of Amy and Adrian and
humiliating cat-calling men, as though she were a terminator in search of
Sarah Connors.
Winkel's Judith is such a darkly charismatic presence that we genuinely
fear for her catching up with Amy. Each time she arrives at a location we've
seen Amy pass through the tension rises another notch on the suspense dial.
It's unclear however just how Judith knows where to go in search of Amy, as
she doesn't seem to come across any clues until she's practically on top of
her. It's the one frustrating element of an otherwise sound piece of
storytelling.
If the supernatural subplot initially seems derivative and one-note, give
it time. As the narrative progresses we realise there's more than meets the
eye here and we begin to question everything we've been told. It's a sign of
how many modern movies are badly written and lacking in visual storytelling
that we find ourselves accepting what we're told at face value. When the
director begins to show us things that contradict what his characters have
told us, we're reminded that in the visual medium of cinema, we should only
trust what we see rather than what we're told.
They Wait in the Dark suffers from a couple of subpar
supporting performances, but McGuire and Winkel excel as the cat and mouse
pairing of Amy and Judith. There's a nervousness about McGuire's performance
that suggests Amy may not be the victim she claims to be, and there's a
slight vulnerability behind Winkel's badass front that hints at Judith
playing a role she's not entirely suited to.
There's a possible subtext to be read into here regarding race relations in
the US, particularly how black people are commodified by white liberals.
Judith and Amy adopting an African-American child seems like a colourblind
casting choice here, but as we learn the details of both Adrian's backstory
and the nature of the supernatural presence menacing Amy, it's difficult not
to read this as a racial allegory. It's probably not a coincidence that the
movie closes with a brief moment of consolation between three black
characters.
They Wait in the Dark is on UK/ROI
VOD from November 13th.
