Be afraid of the dark. Be very, very afraid.
The H-Bomb: As it’s been well documented on this site, I am a (not so) closeted horror fanboy, and over the course of the last decade, one emerging genre director who’s really caught my eye is Brad Anderson. I rented his film “Session 9” years ago with no expectations for it, and wound up being genuinely impressed with its creepy little story about the strange things that happen to a HazMat team working in a gigantic, abandoned insane asylum. His next one, “The Machinist”, the one that Christian Bale famously lost about 100 pounds for, was yet another well crafted, psychological horror thriller. Then came “Transsiberian”, which was more of a mystery/suspense movie, but I ultimately came to enjoy it just as much as Anderson’s prior films.
So being a fan of this underrated director, I went into his new film, “Vanishing on 7th Street”, with anticipation, despite reading some rather negative reviews online. Having now seen it, I’ll agree that it’s not nearly as strong as his earlier work, but I don’t think that it deserves to be crapped on nearly as much as it has been. Like his previous movies, this is a slow-burner that is more about creating a spooky atmosphere and gradually creeping its way under the audience’s skin than it is about spraying blood and guts all over the place.
The film kicks off with a mysterious blackout in Detroit. All the power just goes dead, like an EMP attack. Except, most of the people vanished with the lights, and all that’s left of them is their clothing, watches, dentures, ect. (an element stolen directly from Stephen King’s “The Langoliers”). Among the very few left behind are Luke (Hayden Christensen), a local news reporter, Rosemary (Thandie Newton), a mother whose child vanished during the blackout, Paul (John Leguizamo), a movie theater projectionist/bookworm, and James (Jacob Latimore), a young kid whose mother went to a church for help and never came back.
These characters end up at a bar that has its own power generator and come to realize that it’s the darkness, the shadows themselves, that is the threat, and that the best way to stay alive is to stay near a light source and out of the dark. While they try to figure an escape from this seemingly inescapable situation, they argue amongst themselves about what is happening. Could it be aliens conducting an experiment? Or some freak natural occurrence? Or perhaps the Rapture itself (if you’re unfamiliar with what this is, consult your nearest Jesus freak)?
One of the most basic fears of mankind is the fear of the dark. And why do we naturally fear the dark? Well, basically for the same reason we don’t fear a brightly lit room. Because we fear what we don’t know, or what we can’t see clearly. In the pitch dark, there’s always the possibility of some unknown, unseen threat that can get us. Many complained (POSSIBLE SPOILER) that the specific danger, or what exactly is going on in the shadows, is never definitively explained. But I think that’s the whole idea behind the film. First, the characters in this predicament would never get enough information to figure out for certain what is happening, and second, I think the film’s whole point is to play on the idea that the darkness itself, and the not knowing of what is there and the vague threat that it represents, is the real villain.
The film does make clear that whatever is in the darkness is of intelligent design, by constantly having horrible screams and sinister whispers coming from within it. The darkness will even lure victims in by imitating the voices of loved ones. All of this made the film effectively spooky. Spooky… but never truly scary, as the film does wear out this gimmick and becomes a bit tedious in the mid-section, where not a whole lot happens aside from flashbacks and the characters fighting amongst themselves about what‘s going on and what to do about it.
It doesn’t help that the acting isn’t as stellar as it was in Anderson’s previous films. Instead of Christian Bale, he’s saddled with Hayden Christiansen, a ho-hum actor at best, whose performance ranges from passable to giggle inducing (mostly when he has to show “big emotion”). The fact that his character is mostly an unlikable ass-hat is also a hindrance. Thandie Newton fairs a little better as she is believably desperate in trying to find her son, however, she is a tad dull, and I didn’t really care much about her or what happened to her son (though this somewhat makes up for her embarrassing performance as Condi Rice in Oliver Stone’s “W”). The best turn comes from Leguizamo, who brings a sympathetic charisma to his role that everyone else lacks. He was the only one who seemed like an actual, fleshed out human being to me.
If there was one aspect I would fault the most, it would be the script by Anthony Jaswinski. As others have pointed out, the screenplay has a very “Twilight Zone”-ish feel to it, but lacks the irony and philosophical content of that show. Some have also likened this to the sort of thing that M. Night Shyamalan would write, and yeah, I definitely see some similarities, though I would counter that it‘s not nearly as pretentious or flat out stupid as the bulk of Shyamaladingdong’s scripts.
The CGI shadows are a mixed bag. Sometimes, when they’re creeping towards a person, it’s effective. Other times, it looks laughably hokey. CGI seems like a common complaint these days, but when it’s done badly, it just pulls me out of the film, therefore it deserves my reprimand. Either do it well, or don’t do it at all, damn it! But I digress…
When all is said and done, I definitely place this at the bottom of Anderson’s filmography (I never saw the two rom-coms he made before switching to horror), but it was enjoyable for the most part. It was a nicely eerie and fairly original horror flick that plays on one of our darkest fears (sorry). If you can forgive story lulls and Hayden Christensen’s more questionable moments, then I’d say give this a rent for sure… that is, as long as you’re not afraid of the dark.
