Movie Review - Out of the Dark

Out of the Dark (2015)

Starring Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman, Stephen Rea, and Pixie Davies

Directed by Lluís Quilez

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Ugh... one of these days I'll realize that horror flicks with limited theatrical releases even if they contain actors I know -- Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman, and Stephen Rea, in this case -- just aren't worth my time...particularly if Netflix has picked up streaming capabilities.  Until that day comes when I recognize this problem that I sometimes have, I'll at least know that I'll have some films filling in the lower rungs of my annual rating system.  Out of the Dark is one of these very films that falls into the lower echelons of the RyMickey Ratings.

When Sarah and Paul Harriman (Stiles and Speedman) head to Colombia for a new job working at the manufacturing plant founded and headed by Sarah's father (Rea), they're expecting a refreshing change of pace from their everyday life.  However, their daughter Hannah (Pixie Davis) begins to start acting odd and the Harrimans soon realize that their house may very well be haunted by ghosts of Colombian children.

Sounds generic enough, right?  I could deal with generic.  The problem here is that director Lluís Quilez has crafted a film that is so utterly dark that I found myself literally unable to see what was going on in the film's purported "horror" moments.  That's a huge issue particularly in a horror film that gains its suspense from jump scares rather than a build-up of tension.  It doesn't help matters that the screenplay attempts to shoehorn environmental awareness into the plot to levels of epic failure.  With the actors left squandering in a listless and lifeless plot, Out of the Dark is truly one of the worst films of 2015.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-