Coming Home in the Dark review[spoilers]
Coming Home in the Dark is the latest movie from director James Ashcroft. It is shot mainly around the Welllington region which oddly enough is also where I saw the movie.
The movie revolves around a family taking a hike and picnic, when it is interrupted by 2 sinister men. It is adapted from a short story by Owen Marshall. It starts very strongly and with a bang :), the first act is definitely the best. The main arch of the story is actually resolved fairly early on - the men's reasoning for their actions.
The directing and acting are all top notch. The meat of the movie is set at night and the lighting here is especially quite good. I enjoyed the close up angles of the main characters. There were occasional shots near the beginning of a car being driven along a gravel road which was a bit jumpy and a little jarring but this shot didn't last too long (and I did think maybe it was on purpose to cause a little tummy upset). There were a couple of times at the start where I couldn't decipher some of the ending words, and there were a few local words like Epuni which non-NZ'ers might not know of, but this was not too detrimental.
I feel the main constraint being that it is an adaptation is where it falls. I was half expecting that perhaps Jill might have been revealed to be a worse character. The punishment by Mandrake/Tubs far exceeds the crime(doing nothing) by Hoaggie, which makes it very jarring. And the irony is that Tubs stands by while Mandrake dishes out violence. This makes it difficult to have any feelings for the antagonists, even Tubs.
Although the petrol station scene was relatively good - i do think it could have really made a bigger mid point impact with more suspense involved and possibly ramping up the violence a little more. The problem with trying to build suspense is that because the most brutal act had already been carried out, then Hoaggie and Jill really didn't care what else happened to them. If they still had 1 child alive here, then I think the director really could have really used that to create a lot more tension in the audience and another big BANG moment.
Overall it's a slow burn thriller/horror, it does a decent job and the dialog flows well ("I find a bit of music always helps lift the mood"). I'm giving it an 8 as a film (technical), though it drops to 7 as the constraint on the story lets it down as a movie :)