- Directed by Colin Theys
- Written by Michael Laimo, John Doolan
- Stars Dean Stockwell, Sean Patrick Thomas, Blanche Baker
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 40 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms6c_t_mVPY
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
When a family moves from the big city to a small town, there’s always going to be a little bit of adjustment. This is an extreme case of that. There are some plot points that make questionable sense, and some things that just don’t work that way in real life, but overall, it was a pretty entertaining film. It deserves a moderate thumbs up.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on a man carrying his daughter through the woods. He’s dirty, and he’s been through something bad. He hears screams coming from another room…
We cut to the same man, Dr. Michael Cayle, who talks to a woman whose husband was killed by a rabid dog. She wants to sell her dead husband’s medical practice and the house. Cayle wants to get out of the city. Michael’s family, wife, Christine, and daughter, Jessica, move to the little town of Ashborough. As soon as they arrive, Jessica pukes all over, and Michael steps on a nail, a great start.
Neighbors Phil and Tyler Deighton walk up to introduce themselves. They’re nice and invite the family over for lunch. Michael goes into their bathroom to fix up his foot and meets Mrs. Deighton, who has a strangely disfigured face. At lunch , Michael seems to be in a hurry to leave. Phil mentions that they don’t have cable in this little town, but there are plenty of videotapes at the library. There’s also a town curfew: everyone off the streets by eight.
Michael goes into the office and pulls out the medical records for Mrs. Deighton but doesn’t really look at them. He gets a box full of ebola and other diseases addressed to the former, now-dead doctor, from “Zach,” and he places them in a safe.
Michael starts seeing patients; everyone wants to meet the new doctor, including Lauren, who’s flirty. Phil takes Michael on a hike in the woods, and they go to an old burial ground. Not Indians, but some strange people, the Isolates, who used to live around here. People used to give them sacrifices to keep their families safe. Correction, people still make sacrifices here. Phil says he expects Michael to kill an animal on the stone slab, but Michael thinks it’s all just folklore.
The family goes to a welcoming party for Michael at the church, and Michael feels out of place in the all-white town. Phil reminds Michael about making the sacrifice, but Michael’s busy meeting all the townspeople. The Sheriff and his son, AJ, meet the doctor. Lauren is there, and she asks for his protection, but he thinks she’s just flirting again.
Old lad Zellis is the town’s founder, and she thinks she runs the town. Christine has a meeting with her and immediately wants to go home. At night, we see something strange looking in the windows, but Michael doesn’t. Jessica asks about ghosts.
Christine announces that she’s pregnant, and Lady Zellis is the town’s midwife; it’s what all the women in town do. She’s started spending a lot of time at the church.
That night, Michael has a nightmare but wakes up when he hears something out in the barn. It’s a goat, and Michael kills it in a panic. When he comes back with materials to get rid of the body, it’s gone.
The next day, all of Michael’s patients are no-shows and cancellations. Lauren staggers by, covered in blood. The only thing she says is “Christine” before she dies. He runs inside to call 911, but her body is gone when he returns. Michael goes to the sheriff, who is not helpful.
Lauren turns up later in the middle of the road, it looks like a hit-and-run. Michael’s about to say something, but Tyler stops him. “Don’t– there are rules here.” Michael calls Phil, who can’t talk about it right now.
Michael plugs in a UV light and sees blood splatters and prints all over the house, even on Jessica’s bed– and her face. Michael’s car stops working. His internet is broken. The taxi company refuses to come.
Lady Zellis comes to Michael. “You didn’t make the sacrifice. If we didn’t need you, you’d be dead already.” She warns that something is coming.
Something comes. It’s a bunch of animalistic troglodytes with glowing eyes. They lead Michael and Zellis to their cave lair, where Michael meets the Isolates, not as extinct as Phil may have suggested. They have a sick but very pregnant Isolate who needs his help. He cuts the “woman” open, pulls out her baby, and sews her back up.
Michael wakes up at home and goes straight to Phil’s place. Phil says he tried to warn them not to stay, but they didn’t get the hint. The Isolates took Phil’s wife last night; they left her eyes.
Michael confronts Christine, who also knows more than she’s saying. “I know enough to keep my mouth shut, and so should you. I think it’s time you take the dog for a walk– before it’s too late!” Michael takes the dog to the sacrificial stone but is interrupted by Jessica, who has monsters following her.
Michael boards up all the windows on the house, but Tyler says, “They’ll find a way.” The Isolates do, in fact, come for Michael that night; the sick one needs more attention, so he gives her some penicillin. She dies, and the others eat her.
Michael finds that Phil is also in the cave; they know Phil talked to Michael, and they took him as punishment. The Isolates insist that Michael kill Phil, which he does.
The next day, Tyler comes for a visit. He has Phil’s eyes in a paper cup. He wants to kill the Isolates, but now it’s Michael who plays dumb. He says that Zellis is half-Isolate, and she runs the town, so there’s no help anywhere. Michael knows “they” hear everything, so he slips Tyler a note. Michael then packs the bags for the family.
The family drives out of town, but the sheriff stops them for “breaking curfew.” Christine runs the sheriff down and stops to pick up Tyler. Michael goes into Tyler’s house, and we see there are isolates inside. He finds Zellis interrogating Tyler and interrupts them.
Outside, the monsters are tearing apart Christine’s minivan. There’s a very bloody battle, and the good guys eventually all get in the car and drive away. The road is blocked, and they crash just as Christine starts to say something about the baby. They all end up walking back to their house, but Tyler has been “marked” by Zellis, and the Isolates get him anyway.
Michael takes a dead Isolate to his office and does some tests. The Isolates seem very prone to infection, and he just happens to have a box of plagues in his safe. He now realizes that the old doctor had ordered the diseases to be used against the Isolates, so maybe Michael can do the same.
He loads up a syringe with bubonic plague and goes back to the caves. They’ve got another sick Isolate in there, and he “treats” this one with the plague. They make him inject a small amount into himself first, but Michael has prepared for that by gobbling some pills first. He injects the sick creature, and they lead him back out of the cave, where he rescues Jessica. He gives her some pills so she can also avoid getting the bubonic plague.
All the Isolates die from the plague within minutes.
Back at the house, Christine is giving birth. Zellis is there assisting, as is the sheriff. The thing that comes out isn’t quite human. “Someday, she’ll speak for them, too,” Zellis says as someone sedates Michael.
Michael wakes up and notices an old photo of his wife as a child. The mailbox behind her shows that she’s also from the Zellis family.
Brian’s Commentary
Michael thought the town was treating him strangely because he was black, but it turned out to be a lot worse.
This actually came out the year before “Bone Tomahawk” (2015), but it would also be a great sequel to that film.
Why did Michael want to leave the city so badly? We never saw any incident. Why do the townspeople put up with all this? It seems that everyone knows what’s going on, and the sheriff can’t block the roads all by himself every moment of every day.
Throughout most of the movie, we wondered about the box of diseases, but it was eventually explained. Still, no plague kills that quickly, and no cure or preventative would work that quickly, either. Is the whole town now infected with the plague? We don’t see any evidence of that, but… we should.
The creature effects here are really effective, and the creatures are certainly nightmare fuel. There’s a lot that doesn’t make any sense, but overall, I thought it was pretty fun as long as you don’t think too hard.
Kevin’s Commentary
“What’s a troglodyte?” asks Jessica. Kid, you’re going to find out. So much of the movie hinges on a shipment of disease samples – Ebola, HIV, bubonic plague, some others – that were packed in test tubes and sent through the mail. And then they are handled in a small-town doctor’s office facility. Nitpicking aside, it was a pretty entertaining film, and I had a good time watching it.
Be the first to comment on "2014 Deep in the Darkness"