It’s quiet and eerie, full of ancient Celtic mythology, beautiful scenery, good actors and sheep, but isn’t marketed properly. It’s odd how so many Welsh films can describe the country itself. Art imitates life, and all that caper.
In life, and horror films, us humans are often lead or tempted into places that feel inhibiting, risky or just plain crap. I once read an article slamming the use of first-person subjectivity in film reviews. It was well-written, and maybe it appealed to my armchair Buddhist leanings. I thought “Yeah, that’s for me. I’m not an egotist. It’s about the work, not my feelings”
But the more I write reviews the more I now think that’s crap, and made for stuffily objective film reviews. Movies are meant to elicit emotional reactions, innit? So as you can tell I now have no issue using subjective words like “I” or “my”. It can also be relevant if I’m trying to lead you in a direction. In this case, you are reading a horror film review by a film fan who has very limited experience or love of the genre. I just wasn’t brought up on it. Could this be the reason why I find THE DARK to be totally watchable? Maybe, but it’s probably just bias. It has a Welsh setting, characters, with cultural and mythological references. So, I’m sold. But how about everyone else?
There must be a few reasons why a Hollywood studio production with an international cast, can go so completely unnoticed on release in Wales and the wider UK ? This was 2005. Before YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Before smartphones. But I was a monthly subscriber to both Total Film and Empire magazines and I never remember reading a word about this movie that summer. I remember SHAUN OF THE DEAD, a year earlier in 2004. A movie distributed by Universal Studios, but with a similar budget. You couldn’t find a phone box in Cardiff without seeing Simon Pegg’s boat race on it that summer. A movie’s marketing costs are rarely disclosed but they can be equal to production budgets, and it appears as though no money was spent leading us into THE DARK in 2005.
There can be many reasons. There was some upheaval at Miramax that summer as the Weinsteins finally left the company after a legal battle. That might be totally significant, a little, or not at all. Perhaps they just had no confidence in the movie to perform at the box office? Or perhaps they realised THE RING 2 was released the same month and just decided to bury their film and cut losses?
It’s this sort of situation where I would like to see an official agent in Wales to promote the country within Hollywood studios. For example, Ffilm Cymru Wales do a fantastic job of producing genuine homegrown Welsh movies over the last 10 years. But, we also need American money and exposure. To tell the world about Wales yeah sure, but also to help our own self image. Hollywood setting a film in Wales is rare, in these potentially fertile moments, we need someone to step in to help the marketing at home, improve box office and thus hopefully convince American storytellers to set their films here again. I suspect that, in the social media age, if Miramax set a horror film in Wales, based on a book by a Welsh writer (Sheep by Simon Maginn), making references to Welsh mythology and language, starring Sean Bean and Maria Bello – it would not go so unnoticed this time around.
The Movie
So, subjectivity. It’s useful for you to know that I’m not a horror aficionado, because I really enjoy this movie. As someone easily scared, I found it just as challenging as critical and commercial successes such as THE WOMAN IN BLACK or EL ORFANACTO, but nowhere near as brownpants as THE RING
Foreboding is created in the opening, as Americans Adele (Maria Bello) and Sarah (Sophie Stuckey) get lost in the countryside before reuniting with salt-of-the-earth English daddy James (Bean), with whom Sarah has a loving bond. The early scenes also introduce the Welsh supernatural realm of Annwyn, and it’s not hard to predict which character will get lost there.
And that’s the thing, I suppose. For horror regulars perhaps the tropes are too familiar: waking jolts from nightmares, an old house, a menacing landscape, demonic sheep, vulnerable kids and guilty parents. When the threat comes it’s established by playing nicely on the backstory of the deeply-flawed mum Adele.
The end twists and turns a bit too much, and is confusing. But the climax in the mythical Annwyn (pronounced Ah-noon) is an impressive piece of VFX creativity that compliments the Cornish locations.
Wales
Filmed in England but thankfully set in Wales. There’s a trope subverted nicely there. Cornwall is of course culturally connected to Wales, and these locations look very much like our west coast.
Scottish actor Maurice Roëves (THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, JUDGE DREDD) plays Dafydd, the only Welsh character. There’s an annoying moment on the DVD extras when Maurice reveals that he was the only non-Welsh actor to audition the role. Typical. I like Roëves a lot as an actor, but his accent here is predictably awful. Ever heard a Scot doing a Welsh accent? It’s like having a cup of tea in a recently-used coffee cup.
Spoken references. There’s a line where Maria Bello, in a very north American way, plans to visit her husband in “England” and her fractious daughter corrects her angrily with “Not England – WALES!”. There’s also an annoying exposition scene where a librarian claims that she only speaks Welsh to upset English people. FFS! Slightly annoying to see that the only real context for Cymraeg is negative; pissing off the English, satantic rituals etc. Sigh.
The DVD will set you back about £1.50 maximum. Or you could send me a tweet @MoviesWales requesting a copy and if you live the the Divided Queendom and you’re fast enough I’ll post you one of my spare copies. I’m all about the love, me.
Nick
WALES in the MOVIES 