DARK NATURE

In a pre-credits sequence, the elderly Mrs Petrie (Doreen McGillivray) sits in her rustic Cumbrian manor at night overlooking an attractive bay. She types at an old-fashioned typewriter while listening to classical music on her ancient record player.

When she hears a noise in the house, she calls out for her husband Jonathan (James Bryce). Moments later, her head is caved in with her own typewriter. Her killer takes himself upstairs and showers – only to exhibit alarm when the record player downstairs springs back into life. He descends the stairs to check it out … and takes a knife through the back for his troubles.

Cut to Jane (Vanya Eadie), Mrs Petrie’s daughter, who is en route to her mother’s home with her family – including disagreeable teenaged daughter Chloe (Imogen Toner), youngster Sean (Callum Warren-Brooker) and sackless husband Alex (Len McCaffer) – for a holiday.

On the way, this dysfunctional family listen to the radio and learn of a killer loose in the Cumbria area. It doesn’t seem to trouble them as much as the increasing loneliness of their remote surroundings: they stop their car to take a break occasionally and visit a particularly lacklustre museum, and then later pause to kill a bird that they’ve inadvertently injured.

When they finally arrive at Mrs Petrie’s bay-side abode, Jane is perturbed to learn from her sister Emily (Joanna Miller) that her mother hasn’t been seen for days. The spookiness of the property’s gamekeeper McKenzie (Niall Greig Fulton) does little to reassure her.

As the family settle in to their dwellings and survey their surroundings in search of the missing old lady, it seems that a killer is most certainly in their midst …

But who is bumping people off one-by-one, and why? Could it be the gamekeeper? A family member? Perhaps the weird butterfly-obsessed environmentalist we keep seeing in the nearby woods? Or neighbouring psychic Magda (Jane Stabler)?

By the time the truth behind the mayhem is revealed (something you’ll probably have guessed in advance), half of the potential suspects are dead. But if that suggests that DARK NATURE, at just 76 minutes in length, is a fast-paced film that revolves solely around its body count … well, no, that’s not the case.

The film actually feels quite slow in pace, thanks to languid photography and stilted performances in the early scenes. The dialogue is talky and, aside from the odd moments of snarky humour (Chloe is bored the second the family arrives at their tranquil-seeming destination. Jane suggests she "play with the traffic". Chloe: "There’s no traffic to play with"), it doesn’t really serve much dramatic purpose.

BAFTA award-winning director Mark De Launay does little to disguise the fact that Eddie Harrison’s screenplay owes a great deal to Mario Bava’s infinitely superior A BAY OF BLOOD (itself a riff on Agatha Christie’s ‘Ten Little Indians’). I mean, if you think that opening described above recalls Bava’s film, then you know pretty much how this is going to end too …

Other influences that DARK NATURE wears on its sleeve are LONG WEEKEND (a definite ecological theme is spelt out from the offset, and even serves as part of the unconvincing denouement) and STRAW DOGS. Not a bad triptych of films to use as co-templates, to be fair. But some subtlety about doing so wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Performances are a mixed bag. Toner is a highly likeable, warm screen presence. It’s good to note that she’s gone on to appear in LOVE BITE, even though I have no interest in seeing it. McCaffer can’t act. Fulton, meanwhile, overacts while resembling what Frankie Cocozza is going to look like if he’s still doing cocaine in 15 years’ time.

Still, DARK NATURE, despite its very low budget aesthetics (which must’ve horrified unprepared patrons when it received a surprise limited theatrical run a couple of years back), does have its plus points.

For a start, the score is a welcome mix of agreeable corny 80s-style slasher signposts and piano-led Chopin interludes. Along with the occasional commercial song, it works surprisingly well.

Andrew Begg is a keen cinematographer who captures the beauty of the Dumfries and Galloway locations nicely; the FX work largely shies away from CGI in favour of old-school prosthetics gore. Cool.

Best of all – and I don’t care if this paints me as a sexist ignoramus – the sight of Miller running around in broad daylight, in nothing but a bikini and an open white blouse, is possibly my review viewing highlight of the month.

Previously released on DVD and blu-ray in America by Troma (it’s NOT a Troma production), DARK NATURE now gets its belated UK debut onto digital format - DVD only - courtesy of Matchbox Films.

DARK NATURE was provided for review on a very early screener disc (a DVD-R with the title written across it in marker pen), so there were no menus or bonus features on offer here. I doubt even that the picture quality of the disc I viewed will be indicative of what the retail DVD will proffer.

Anyhow, the screener disc presented the film uncut in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, enhancing it for 16x9 televisions. Although colours and blacks were both solid, there was quite a bit of digital noise – I expect this will not be an issue on the final discs.

English audio came in a clean and clear, evenly channelled 2.0 mix. No qualms on this front whatsoever.

So, DARK NATURE is not a great film but it is well-shot and does have its moments.

Review by Stuart Willis