Edges of Darkness (2009)
By Chris Jacques
With dozens of questions to answer in reviewing a film, the first question should typically never be, “how much was the Xanax budget for this fucking movie?” That was the case as the first act of the latest in a slew of quasi-zombie, no-budget masterpieces known as Edges of Darkness began, however, and it ended being among the most prevalent. There are movies that plod and movies that crawl, and while this movie didn’t necessarily do either, it seemed as though those involved with the production of the film had a checklist of objectives, none of which included a pace that moved faster than molasses in quicksand. These are the grounds on which a movie like this are grown.
Edges of Darkness, written and directed by Jason Horton & Blaine Cade, is an odd number at the least, uneven all over but uneven enough that turning off the movie is a physical impossibility. Sure, it’s not impossible to lose focus, grab a glass of soy milk, pop a painkiller or two, pause the movie to masturbate, or take turns reciting Chaucer with old friends, but Edges of Darkness very effectively and slyly manages to hold just enough of one’s attention to keep the game going. And whether it’s Schindler’s List or a midget gangbang, holding one’s attention wins at least a good 25% of the battle.
The movie, as far as this reviewer can discern, is an anthology flick of sorts, loosely based around a worldwide epidemic of the undead (more fucking zombies-ish!)…that all seems to be happening in a single apartment complex in Redondo Beach or Culver City, CA. The menagerie seemingly includes an African-American vampire couple, a deadpan Star Child, a pointlessly bad-ass and poorly-written Lara Croft rip-off (who, naturally, is gorgeous), a pair of psychotic (or are they?) clergymen, philosophically pontificating zombies, and a guy who’d rather use the remaining remnants of go-juice from his gas-powered generator to continue pumping out updates on his blog, which happens to be produced on what looks like the equivalent to a Commodore 64.
What results from this filmic Pollock painting is a dozen different cul-de-sacs of stories based around an astoundingly vague problem. Think Right At Your Door or a poorly-executed World War Z, but without the suspense or political intrigue, and that’s not even close…but that’s about as close as it‘s going to get.
If at gunpoint, the caliber of the bullet would be of paramount importance in the decision to commit to saying that any of the acting is very good. It’s well-known in the horror genre that good acting does not always a great horror flick make, but the overall feel of the movie was that it might very well have been shot in slow-motion so that everyone would look more expressive. It could be reasonably conceived that the movie was actually filmed as an arts & crafts exercise in a rehab center full of methadone patients. Again, however, in viewing the movie, it becomes absolutely necessary to see if the car wreck is actually going to provide the explosion. Will the Olds Eighty-Eight actually go down in the flames that all the onlookers are absolutely salivating to see?
Sadly, the answer is only “kinda.” Aside from one fantastically gratifying, viscerally stimulating gore scene towards the end of Edges of Darkness, there’s absolutely nothing going on…in a very engaging way. The movie’s actually really interesting in that sense, in that it does suck. It really does suck. Once it starts, though, it’s guaranteed to eat up about 85 minutes of life. It will eat your life like a zombie eats brains.
And while attempts to refrain from being a complete jerk about Edges of Darkness might be monumentally difficult, the film’s really not all horrible. Within one particular element of the antholog-esque story structure, there’s a really heavy and pretty well-done nod to influential, wildly inventive directors like Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) or David Cronenberg circa Videodrome, a nod that shifted this particular part of Darkness’ narrative, a curve-ball twist from “brazenly annoying” to “definitely intriguing.” Were that element of the story to have been fleshed out beyond the afterthought it ultimately became, Edges of Darkness could have been a much stronger, stranger movie, or at least an anthology with one sure-fire segment.
If a single problem with Edges of Darkness had to be pinpointed, that problem would not be in the creativity department. Ideas abound with this flick and they just don’t quit. If anything, the one problem would be that the sheer glut of so many ideas weren’t effectively reined in, for whatever reason. More than once throughout the film, it was clear that the ambition and scope that Edges of Darkness attempted to display might have been better suited for a pay-TV mini-series. Acting, special effects, massive amounts of barbiturates…they all come and go and can largely be purchased; anyone over at Dark Castle Productions could probably affirm that. Time, footage and focus are what Darkness’ material needed, and it’s a bit of a shame that they didn’t (or couldn’t) have it. As it stands, however, the film is definitely strange; the jury’s out on whether such is necessarily a good thing, but when the movie ends the head seems to be able to do little else but spin. Maybe, when constraints come with the territory, it’s better to confuse than to amaze.
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