Review of Dark Night (2017) by Matt C — 04 Feb 2017

Dark Night is a weird movie because it set itself up as a horror mystery set in 2015 Sarasota, Florida, based on the events of the 2012 Aurora Theater attack. Instead, it's a mostly silent film about ordinary people going about their day doing mundane things in the hours before they all go to the movies. Some of the people do ominously suspicious things that might make you think that by the end of the night, they will commit an unknown atrocity, like the veteran going to a PTSD meeting before going to the gun range, or the loner high school kid hallucinating as he talks to an unknown person with his mother.

But for the most part, it's just a visually stunning bore with occasionally slow and drowned out music. I tried to not fall asleep a few times, and something alerts me: whether it's an unnecessarily stupid jump scare that did nothing for the plot or a truly terrifying visual that goes nowhere, my attention would be grabbed. It's a film where nothing happens, which is fine, but there is no execution. There is no great reveal. There isn't even much of a resolution except implication. There are moments where the film tries to clue you about something that could be significant or offer clever easter eggs, which are then revealed to be nothing of actual importance. There are plots that start and go nowhere. Many shots are artfully done, but continue several beats longer than that do, creating a drag on the film. There are elements that don't make logical sense, from the fact that the Aurora attack is - in fact - referenced often, but then more elements play out like the attack itself. And when the perpetrator is revealed, his motives remain unclear.

And that's probably the biggest problem with the movie, because there's a brilliant concept in here, the pieces are all here. But there is no execution or point that can be hammered. The film makes statements on mental illness, on veterans, on gun control; things that all come out after a tragedy, but the film says NOTHING on them. This could have been an important film about the gun tragedy in America, but it instead falls so tragically short. There's a pretentiousness to the idea that maybe there is no answer, because the film tried to reveal that anyone could be capable of horror. That's what the characters were supposed to be, just red herrings. Instead, it's the person you most definitely expect, and there's a massive disservice to the fact that he also actually resembles. The ending, unfortunately, just makes this movie lost points because these threads remain untouched and it became a film about nothing, and a gorgeously looking movie that tries to be complex actually comes off as pretentious crap.