Dark Nature (2009) User Reviews (12)

A Boring, Talky Mess

[lovecraft231 · 2/10 · 1 July 2010]

There's nothing wrong with paying respect to your influences. Many a genre film past and present has done this, and sometimes to great success. It's usually for not though, as many directors trying to respect the directors and movies that they love end up coming off as immature fan-boys or people without an original bone in their body. While Marc De Launay's "Dark Nature" doesn't fall for those traps, it's still a mess.

Somewhere in Scotland, a very dysfunctional family is on vacation. There's a bit of a problem though-there's a killer whose knocking people off. Oh, and some of the requisite oddball characters who exist only to be killed show up as well.

There are a few things "Dark Nature" get's right. The score is pretty good, some of the cinematography and footage of nature is beautiful, and the gore is pretty cool. That's where the fun ends though, as much of the movie is De Launay paying tribute to the likes of Dario Argento, Mario Bava ("Twitch of the Death Nerve" seems to be the primary influence here,) "Friday the 13th" and old ecological horror films like "Long Weekend." While he manages to thankfully do so without pilfering from said movies, he still gets a whole lot wrong.

For one thing, it's never that scary or intriguing. The aforementioned movies and directors managed to create a sense of dread and suspense to go with everything else. However, the director here seems clueless as to how to do that, as he can't even pull off a decent atmosphere. Also, all of the characters are extremely annoying. People like the entomologist and the psychic are supposed to be interesting in an odd way, but they are more annoying if anything. And don't get me started with the family, especially the daughter. So much time is spent with this obnoxious bitch that the viewer is left exhausted.

And then there's all of the talk. There's a lot of it here-and let it be known there is a difference between dialog and talk. Dialogue is interesting and helps with the characters. This movie is so talky that there were moments in which I started to remember the films of Andy Milligan-and that's not a good thing. Oh, and let's not forget the whole ecological message in the movie, which in a shocking surprise falls flat. The film wants to be a commentary on man's mistreatment of nature, yet it can't make that work. It instead comes off as a poor man's mix of "Friday the 13th" and Lars Von Trier's "Antichrist."

It's a shame that I didn't like the movie, as there are a few neat things in it, and I do think that it had potential to be good. What I got though was a talky, boring mess of a movie. I expect better, and the audience deserves better too. At least it's better than the movies of Dante Tomaselli.

Talky and long-winded indie drama

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 13 May 2017]

DARK NATURE is misadvertised as a slick, sick horror film but in reality it's a talky drama in which very little happens. As such it's something of a tedious watch, lacking in both interest and intent, a film which makes good use of the wild Scottish locations but does absolutely nothing else. The unfolding of the plot is slow and long-winded and the characters are very uninteresting with the actors struggling to give them life. There's really not much reason to watch when there are so few elements of interest in the entire film.

dreadful effort

[gavin_watson · 1/10 · 7 December 2009]

Many of the other reviewers have given this film various marks over 6/10 which to me is completely baffling. Like others have stated this film was on in cineworld for one Friday only with 2 showings. We decided to take the risk with an unknown due to the unappealing range of Hollywood films in at the moment. judging by the larger audience it had to be made up of either people involved with the film or others who plumped with the risk of an unknown effort.

I'll start off with the positives - it was just over an hour long. the film actually started about 9.20 and we were back in our flat by 11. If this film had been 2 hours long I fear I would've been in the "leavers" category, which is saying something as i even sat through Gozu!! The Gory parts were done reasonably well for such a low budget film although after viewing it you've got to wonder whether or not the whole budget was blown on this! The negatives are plentiful. First and foremost, the storyline was awful, plain and simple. Throughout the whole "film" there is not one iota of an explanation given as to why certain people do what they do. From the typewriter moment at the start, to the tarot cards to the ending with the crossbow - it didn't really fit together to make a competent plot. They are obviously trying to show that everyone has it in them to kill another human being, all it takes is a trigger - but the trigger is never inserted into the storyline. Senseless killing is OK if you go down the route of having an insane serial killer but this seemed to be trying to portray the opposite and failed badly.

Another huge negative was the standard of acting. Only the gamekeeper gets pass-marks for his acting in this even though he only had about 5 lines. The rest of the cast were horrendous beyond belief - I doubt many of them would get a shot on Emmerdale it was that bad. I am maybe being harsh as i haven't seen them in anything else so it could be the case that they were working with what they were given - which wasn't much. the dialogue is shocking, the writer of this nonsense should really hang his head in shame.

A third big negative for me was the lack of imagination in terms of shooting on that location. They obviously had a beautiful spot to work with but didn't utilise it properly. Most shots were bland and ordinary which served in a descriptive manner rather than adding anything to the movie itself. It could have been so much better if a photographer had been used to get the best out of the location.

In summary I feel like this was a really poor effort . I cant condone people shouting in the cinema but at the same time if i had paid £7 for that i would have been raging. Luckily i have an unlimited card so i can afford some stinkers. I can assure you that if River City ever decide to make a late night episode with a serial killer on the loose it would beat this effort hands down.

What is there to say...

[ironfootjarvos · 1/10 · 7 February 2013]

Firstly I cannot believe I spent £5 to purchase this DVD... Daylight robbery...

The DVD case itself seems as if this could be a good film to watch, false advertising at its best...

"Tense, twisted, shocking and very bloody." BBC Movie Cafe "Pulls out all the stops... Sinister, sparse and enigmatic" The List "Ticks all the right slasher boxes." Evening Times "Has 'Cult Following' written all over it." Daily Record.

At this moment there is a big scandal into football match fixing, where is the investigation into film reviewers? How much are they being paid to lie to the public? They would make great politicians...

Bafta Award - New Talent Awards - Nominated Best Director Winner - Best Director International - HD Festival Winner - Best Cinematography - International HD Festival.

Who ever made these nominations and awarded these awards must have been on pure Crack! Someone needs to investigate them too..

I really enjoy my films and watch plenty of them, take this from me, save yourself a £5. Don't waste 76 mins of your life watching this... Or buy it as gift for someone you really secretly hate, so they have to suffer.

The plot is..well there is no real plot.. characters aren't explained... i'm left asking myself his relevance here is what? "Very Bloody" hmm no... Kept finding myself checking to see how long I had left to watch...

Thankfully The Matrix Reloaded has just came on tele, and has calmed me enough not to launch my tele, xbox and newly acquired Dark Nature DVD through my living room window...

It's not good, but as a media student I can sympathise!

[yousoldmysoulforpogs · 5/10 · 14 December 2009]

Perhaps when I took my seat, waited twenty minutes through darkness and up came a DVD menu on the cinema screen wasn't exactly what I expected. The film had a very limited cinema release (i.e. twice a week for a month in Cineworld, and that was it) so I was determined to catch at least one showing. When beginning to describe the film, low-budget doesn't scratch the surface, the whole movie no doubt filmed entirely on the Southwest coast of Scotland in the film-makers' back garden. It's a horror/slasher flick in all fragances but it fails badly to pin the woes of the killer on a "you're killing the earth, so we're killing you" twist. It's obvious that although the film tries its very best to be serious (it fails), the dialogue makes numerous nods to slasher films of yore (such classic lines like "He wasn't strong enough" and "The Earth fights back"). Why in God's name didn't they go all out B-movie slasher tribute style, I don't know - because the narrative strengths (if they exist) lie completely in the moments in the film where the killer is honing in on his prey. All in all, the film ends up lamehat because it indeed takes itself far too seriously when it really had no chance at all with the kind of budget it had. Gets a better rating because of the reasonably convincing gore and the slightly present "so-bad-it's-good" factor, but overall the producers should have thrown the script in the writer's face and said "bring back some GOAR!".

Drivel

[sebpopcorn · 16 June 2010]

I love horror movies and I don't mind a good thriller but this is neither. I realised halfway through that I was watching a virtual remake of an equally pointless Italian flick I'd already seen. I was hoping I was wrong but I wasn't, this is every bit as witless and shares the same pathetic ending.

Rip up the first 40 minutes of this film and throw it away, it has no bearing on the rest of the movie. There's some killings rendered dull by the flat pace and boring killer. There's some victims but they are completely dull and lifeless too.

To cap it off there's a message about the world cleansing itself or something and pure crap that is too. It doesn't even make sense within the confines of the dreamlike situation it tries to create. This is a pitiful boring movie and anyone rating it over two stars is most definitely in it, directed it or just has no taste in movies. Don't waste your time, it's beyond terrible.

Not for the faint-hearted!

[SC-20 · 8/10 · 30 October 2009]

Don't be fooled by the low budget - there are plenty of gory surprises in this bloody thriller about a family holiday gone horribly wrong, as well as a sprinkling of red herrings and twists.

Director Marc de Launay contrasts the shocks with lingering shots of the deceptively peaceful scenery (the setting is Cumbria but it was filmed in Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland), but the accompanying score never allows the edge-of-the-seat tension to drop.

This is one for the genre fans - unlike in Hollywood slashers, there are close-up shots of the wounds and spurting blood. Not to mention a hands-over-the-eyes finale involving the optimistic setting of an ancient animal trap...

Good effort!

[jayhayden5 · 6/10 · 2 November 2009]

Hi there, saw this at cine world on Friday, it was packed, which is something special for 'local produce' above the blockbusters!! Loved the genre nods and homages to argento and co. Creepy and funny and looked stunning. Story was a bit thin but that comes with the territory and a few bits of 'hammy' acting were well overshadowed by the brilliant Mackenzie guy and Imogen Toner who the daughter, pair of them well scary! Great scenery too and locations but don't know if the film's content will help the tourist industry at all! Punches well above it's meagre budget in my book in all departments! Definitely worth checking out for genre fans and those further afield! Good effort!

Entertainment? Yes or No? Yes!

[polly-574-714733 · 8/10 · 5 November 2009]

Sometimes we can all get carried away with comparisons, budgets and all sorts of genre comments. For me it was a good night's - THE NIGHT BEFORE HALLOWEEN ESPECIALLY - entertainment and although perhaps it could have been shorter - so to too (in my opinion) could District 9 (oh dear I am doing it now). The scenery, shooting viewed as a Scot was a highlight and although it may not encourage the tourists to stay in secluded spots it was much more refreshing to watch than "oh know not another US city being torn apart by earthquake, storm, flood etc. etc." Those who did leave I'd say, better and worse films will continue to be walked out of, but I certainly for one enjoyed it and I stayed to the end and "no" my brother wasn't acting in it! I will look out for the director in the future!

Dark Nature

[Mascherano · 7/10 · 3 November 2009]

Family holidays may frequently be a recipe for disaster, and this simple and effective thriller takes this maxim to its natural conclusion. A moderately dysfunctional family of mum, new boyfriend and kids drive out into the countryside to visit her mother for a holiday. Little do they know what they are getting themselves into.

Director Marc de Launay and writer Eddie Harrison combine to produce a delightfully nasty and violent thriller, which bears all the hallmarks of classic 70s exploitation cinema. This is not the only influence though, with nods also to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, Gus Van Sant in restrained and sparse mode, and to horror maestro Dario Argento.

With red herrings, an appreciable sense of false revelation, a tasty dose of gore and a clean, clinical, functionally efficient feel to the picture, this is enjoyable fare. The dialogue is stripped of flannel, everything has a reason to happen despite an overall feeling of ambiguity and the direction shows an interesting ambivalence towards the central characters which poses more questions than it answers.

Dark Nature is a pleasing B movie. Small aims, nicely realised.

Darkly appealing

[stuartross78 · 6/10 · 3 November 2009]

Saw Dark Nature in a busy Glasgow cinema too and enjoyed it. It has a good balance of Hitchcockian suspense and psychotronic-style death scenes i.e. close-ups of axes in heads; humorous expressions of shock on actors' faces. Some nods to Herschell Gordon Lewis in there too maybe. Yes, you can tell it was made on a small budget and the acting at times was a little bit suspect but the location is stunning and adds a lot to the atmosphere of the movie, which is the point I guess considering its title. Some nice music included in it too. As mentioned in one of the other posts, the use of the bear trap could possibly be the finest in cinema history.

Admirable yet flawed genre film

[degenerate_1 · 6/10 · 4 November 2009]

Dark Nature is an admirable albeit flawed attempt to replicate the genre film making of the U.S that dominates our multiplexes. The film is a considerable achievement when you consider the budget involved and respect has to be shown for getting a Cineworld release, something most Scottish films can only dream of. As for the film itself, while I don't agree with delusional users who dare to make comparisons with Dario Argento's work, it's certainly more palatable than most art house fare churned out by Scottish cinema at present. The casting of the film is by in large good, with Imogen Toner, Niall Fulton and Vanya Eadie putting in solid performances. Direction while somewhat choppy at points is indicative of a first feature director and low budget, while the DOP work is solid. Whether intentional or not 'Dark Nature' does entertain the audience, something the Scottish film industry forgot how to do a long time ago. Most problems in the film occur due to the script, lending weight to the old adage that you can't make a good film from a bad script.

Films such as 'Dark Nature','The Dead Outside' along with the superior 'Outpost' represent an interesting new development in the Scottish film industry, namely production houses attempting to make effective genre films which are commercially viable. It's worth considering that studio's such as New Line cinema were built by genre fodder such as the Nightmare on Elm Street series, lets hope the three production companies involved in the aforementioned films evolve in a similar manner.

On a side note I'd also like to thank the punter with the bout of Tourette's syndrome who shouted at the screen for reminding me why Glasgow people are amongst the most ignorant cinema goers in the UK.