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Out of Darkness Movie Review

Out of Darkness is a 2022 British adventure thriller film directed by Andrew Cumming and starring Safia Oakley-Green and Kit Young. It’s a very flawed, but interesting period genre flick.

About 45.000 years ago, a desperate band of early humans finds a new land to settle in. As they start to realize that something monstrous is hunting them down, they must confront a horrifying danger that they never could have imagined. This is a film that was eerily similar to ‘Prey’, but set in the Stone Age instead and with no SF elements. But essentially there is that immense realism and minimalism in its approach to storytelling that were very much present here.

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This movie was sold as a horror, but in actuality it’s a very dark adventure story with some strong thriller elements. My main issue with it is its overly slow pace that rendered it quite boring in some stretches – the second act was particularly uninvolving. But the third act picked things up considerably, culminating with a twist ending that really worked and was so memorable.

The twist that it was Neanderthals all along who were the perpetrators made sense and it was a more interesting choice than to have an imaginary monster in my opinion as it fitted the time period and was instantly believable. The movie’s final message about the importance of tolerance between different species was great, but the film ultimately had a nihilistic final scene, one that realistically depicted the very beginnings of human cruelty and warfare.

Safia Oakley-Green delivered a breakout performance in the best role in the movie. She was the only character who was at least somewhat developed and for whom you rooted throughout. Kit Young of ‘Shadow and Bone’ fame was also here and he was quite good, but mostly the characterization was too slight, so it was difficult for me to care about these prehistoric people.

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Out of Darkness is strikingly shot with some gorgeous nighttime sky imagery throughout. Some of those shots made for a very artistically inclined movie, one that was also pleasantly minimalistic in its overall plot and ambition. The score was great too and the Scottish Highlands setting made for a stunning-looking picture. I also appreciated that the filmmakers invented their own language that was similar to Basque. This made it more authentic. I just wished that the movie was brisker in pace and better developed in its characters.