The sun sets on a small adventure party led by Adem (Chuku Modu).  The man has led them to a new land, but it is feared to have been a fruitless journey and the environment is hostile, the land is barren, and there is little in the way of shelter.  As the sounds of night-stalking creatures begin to grow closer, young Heron (Luna Mwezi) asks Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green) to tell him a story.  She refuses, so Odal (Arno Luening), the elder of the group, begins to tell a tale of a cured wasteland, and a band of travelers who are destined to die there before being cut off by Adem, knowing that this story is a veiled barb against his leadership.  In the morning, as the group travels inland, the stories prove true as they discover the cruel and near-inhabitable wilderness which is unwelcoming to its new guests looking to find a home. 

For his feature debut, director Andrew Cumming chose an ambitious project with Out of Darkness; a pre-historical survival thriller.  He broke the story with Oliver Kassman while Ruth Greenberg wrote the script, working with Daniel Andersson who created a fictional language, Tola, for the 88-minute film.  It premiered at the 2022 edition of the London Film Festival, but it did not receive a state-side theatrical release until early 2024; a joint effort between Sony and Bleecker Street Media. 

The film starts off like a stone-age drama.  Beyah, we quickly learn, is a “stray,” taken in by the party but not family.  She remains resentful because Adem treats her harshly, but his pregnant wife, Ave (Iola Evans), looks at her with kindness and Adem’s brother, Geirr (Kit Young), finds more amicable ways of coping with the headstrong woman about his age, especially since she will be betrothed to the young man once the group has settled.  At the end of the day, they all bring something unique to the group and depend on each other whether they like it or not, either in the immediate or in their proliferation.  There is a lot of interest for the audience in how this hierarchy is set up, but Cumming is more interested in the action potential of his film than he is in the dramatic.  As the environment grows more dangerous from an unknown threat that is big enough to kill – or at the very least, sly enough to trap – a wooly mammoth, they will need to put these differences aside quickly or become the next victim. 

In the lengthy middle act of the film, the travelers find themselves forced into the dense forest after Heron was grabbed in the night by a mysterious presence.  Ben Fordesman’s immersive camera is finally able to be more fully utilized in these sequences as the first person pov which he shoots much of the action is able to capture more than the vast darkness that overwhelmed the fireside scenes.  The other benefit of breaking for day is that he can revel in the stunning landscapes and incredible terrain.  Dressed in Michael O’Connor’s Stone Age couture, the world presented in the film is a romanticized one as the clothes are all closely stitched and the cast well-kempt, but the images are so beautiful that the visual anachronisms are easily forgiven. 

When it comes to action, Fordeman’s camera strikes a good balance between first and third person, so audiences always have a sense of what is going on and do not get too dizzy from the whipping lens.  Unfortunately, it does rely a lot on jump scare setups as the creature begins picking off the crew one by one, but Cumming packs his brief narrative with enough interesting elements that we still find excitement as they journey closer to the den of the beast and a strange altar stained with blood.  Heron is pulled away from the group in the middle of the night which sets this act into motion.  His father searches for him while Fordeman’s camera stays back at the camp so we hear the rustling of the bushes, the howling of animals, and finally, a fleshy, visceral connection of an object against a body.  Cumming leaves us in anticipation for a while before recovering Adem’s body, bloody and grasping at life by a thread; Geirr is unable to put him out of his misery, a chore all too happily taken on by Beyah. 

The difficult thing about the middle act of Out of Darkness is that Cumming is a little unbalanced in unveiling the mystery of the threat.  It begins very naturally, the strangers in a strange land hear the wildlife all around them, but as they begin to get dragged off into the wilderness, we begin to see more and more of the creature responsible.  Dressed in skins and what appears to be a hornets’ nest mask, the camera angles, and the foggy morning mist let the creature tower across the frame as if they are being stalked by a supernatural beast.  The reveal, that the creature is a pair of Neanderthals (Rosebud Melarkey, Tyrell Mhlanga), is really the only way to conclude the film as the story does not support the lore for something more alien in nature, but the moral conclusion of the film can leave many in the audience scratching their heads.  It tries to teeter the narrative into a cautionary tale about how we are all the same under the umbrella of species, and while that is a noble stance, Heron’s insistence to Beyah not to attack the Neanderthal couple is little more than hearsay against what audiences are allowed to see.  His argument that they were trying to help prevent him from starving or that they were honoring Ave who was with child may be true, but it is not supported by what we saw and the tonal shift in these final minutes brings about confusion more than resolution. 

Out of Darkness is still an enjoyable film, albeit one that feels messy as it tries to tackle some larger concepts than the stalking premise allowed for it to properly set up.  As a horror movie, it is enjoyable as it executes the formula and as a drama, it sets up an interesting premise, but ultimately, the film is a little slight.  It does not overstay its welcome, which is appreciated, but it is hard to say that it achieves everything it is looking to do.  It still needs to be admired, though, that such an ambitious effort of a first-time director resulted in a unified vision in all of its filmmaking elements and it will be exciting to see how Cumming grows his career, hopefully with a continued commitment to more well-executed and original ideas that can creatively blend multiple genres into larger stories that can capture and excite wider audiences.