Review of And Soon the Darkness (2010) by Michael T — 10 Jan 2011

Anchor Bay's film division financed and distributed this film before marketing the Blu-ray and DVD versions; a few years ago Anchor Bay released the original 1970 film on DVD. The plot replaces the vacationing English nurses in rural France with two vacationing American students in rural Argentina.

The only thing that remains the same is the fact that both sets of young ladies are touring on bicycles and one of them disappears. Odette Yustman and Amber Heard play the two sightseers, the characters come across as well-meaning, intelligent, Gen-Yers and not the usual shallow morons you wish would hurry up and get killed.

Karl Urban is on hand to play an all too helpful and mysterious American stranger; is role is underwritten and they should have ramped up the menace. All-in-all, its terribly predictable, there have been 40 years of thrillers and horror movies between 1970 and today and its hard for even the most skilled director not to telegraph his moves when making this kind of movie.

Director Marcos Efron does capture the beauty of arid northern Argentina and references the country's tragic past (a monument to the disappeared victims of the death squads in 1975-86; a town abandoned after it was flooded out by a major river.

..). Worth a look.