Always From Darkness (2012) Review

Sent to me from Film Zero Productions, I was able to screen the recently released Always From Darkness by directors Phil Thomas and Matt Brooks. Without any inclination as to the plot beforehand, I dimmed the lights and sat down to see what this little film had to offer.

After losing his parents, and his long-term girlfriend in one foul swoop, Jude (Kevin Costello) struggles to find a reason to wake up in the morning. But when several new neighbors move into the house across the street, he grows increasingly curious. As they do with him. In the middle of the night he meets Anastasia (Danielle Paccione) for the first time. It’s a strange and ominous occurrence but somehow Jude agrees to a dinner date the next night at 11:00pm. When Jude’s sister Leslie (Alicia Tansey) gets wind of his new acquaintance she’s both relieved and a bit concerned. But who wouldn’t be? That next night, Jude’s date goes as well as anyone could hope. Drinks, then dessert back at her place. But after their romantic evening fades to black, he wakes up in her bed the next morning feeling strange. Coming home, he notices bite marks on his neck, severe exhaustion, and a strange appetite.

As the story follows Anastasia, we quickly learn she’s a vampire, and that Jude looks exactly like the fiancé that she left behind in her mortal life. She pleads her Master to allow her to have Jude as her own and when he approves, Anastasia wastes no time introducing Jude to the new life he’ll never be able to leave. But there are larger forces at work. Leslie won’t let go of her brother easily, and Anastasia has made a few enemies that want to see her gone.

Right off the bat, all the characters are shallow archetypes that were unable to penetrate my interest. Though the acting was hardly the worst I’ve seen, without a descent script they had little to work from. Much of the dialogue could’ve been edited out. A movie with this subject matter is more about the feeling of the scene rather than the conversation. Instead of depicting emotion with feeling, the movie was handicapped by describing everything they felt out loud. And what made this more unfortunate are the frequent sound issues that remained post-production.

The story was mild at best. For the most part it played out very predictable and methodical but when it finally ended, I realized there were several things that didn’t line up. In the beginning, Jude is seen typing what I interpret as a memoir, which sets up the story as a flashback, but they never return to that by the time the movie ends. Also, the movie has a lot of narration from Jude (continuing to reinforce the memoir scenario) in the opening scenes but this suddenly stops a third of the way in. In addition, there is the perplexing appearance of a naked female vampire that haunts Jude while he sleeps before his transformation. She could’ve merely been the foreboding physical embodiment of vampirism but it wasn’t made clear. And the fact that she was nude didn’t feel necessary. The only thing I can really commemorate this film on is its use of lighting and shadow. I thought it did a great job with using those to define important moments, but didn’t know how to utilize it for more mundane scenes.

Savage Score cries a pained 1.5 out of 5. I would implore the director to revisit the editing floor and make some serious cuts. As for you, the audience, I wouldn’t recommend this movie. I wish I had found more redeemable qualities but there just wasn’t enough substance. Gore score puddles a 4 out of 10. The effects that were used were average. Maybe this film should stay Always IN Darkness.