FROM THE DARK (2014)
I don't include Z'Dar ratings with Blood Capsules. It's a custom as old as time. It's also convenient, as I'm not sure which rating I would assign to From the Dark. Stalking out of Ireland, this quaggy spooker does many things well. The atmosphere is leaden with gloom (it's all about those peat bogs, baby), the dialogue is natural, and the monster is too cool to attend an institution for learning. Unfortunately, I encountered a commensurate canon of drawbacks. Aside from the fact that the storyline is outmoded (more on that later), the pace is strangled by endless scenes of characters searching and/or walking in the dark. Shit, director Conor McMahon took his title to heart.
So the outmoded storyline. Maybe it's just me, but I'm growing weary of cars breaking down in the middle of nowhere. Is this a mortiferous flaw? No, but I reserve the right to be a grouch. At any rate, a young couple is stranded in the soupy, silvered countryside. They aren't alone. Eh, that didn't track. Let me try it again, only with the added urgency of an exclamation point. *ahem* They aren't alone! Much better. There is a vampire-adjacent ghoul creeping around the premises, and if he has it his way, our pasty lovebirds will not observe another sunrise. My calculation of "vampire-adjacent" is just that; we don't know anything about the miscreant. Fine by me. Y'know, From the Dark is one road chase short of being Jeepers Creepers.
The closest I can come to a final verdict is...yeah, it's worth renting. A notch above mediocre. By the way, all of these words were typed with an Irish accent.
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