Dark Places (Movie Review)

Frequently, when talking to people who don’t consider themselves to be horror fans, the conversation of horror vs. thriller comes up. These two styles share a lot in common from the arc of the narrative to the types of characters, to the very beats that propel the story forward.  A thriller can be just as heart-pounding and enthralling as any horror movie—when done right. The problem is that as the thriller relies less on scares and creative kills, the mystery at the heart of the story, there is not a lot less room for error in the way the pieces of that story fit together and they way that it’s told.

Though certainly not a horror movie in any way, the 2014 adaptation of Gillian Flynn novel Gone Girl delivered a fantastically dark and atmospheric thrill ride from start to finish, due in large part to some stellar performances and the skillful hand of director David Fincher. Despite the fact that it was adapted from a book made up of two dueling narratives, one dependent entirely on diary entries of a missing woman, this book was able to be translated seamlessly for the screen and critics and fans alike went wild.

Clearly trying to capitalize on its success, the rights for another of Flynn’s novels, Dark Places, were snatched up and an equally star-studded cast was gathered. Starring Charlize Theron as the adult survivor of a massacre that killed her older sisters and mother when she was younger, the story slowly unwinds what really happened that day. Libby (Theron) begrudgingly joins a group of amateur sleuths (lead by Nicholas Hoult, who costarred with Theron in arguably one of the best films of 2015) who are desperate to exonerate her older brother who has been in jail for the murders for the last twenty plus years.

On its surface, this movie may have looked like it was destined for success, but it was anything but. The first serious failing seems to be in the adaptation itself. Rather than enlisting the author herself, the various production companies involved in the making of this movie hired a relatively unknown director in Giles Paquet-Brenner to write and direct the film. The film relied far too heavily on voiceover—namely having Libby vomit exposition in the form of her reading large block quotes of text from the book while non-action took place on screen. Apart from that, the directing itself was incredibly shoddy. The camera work looked like it would be better suited for a straight-to-TV movie and the inexplicable grainy, found-footage shots that were used to represent Libby’s flashbacks have no place in a movie coming out in 2015.

Along with Charlize Theron and Nicholas Hoult, this movie had Christina Hendricks, Chloe Grace-Moretz, Corey Stoll, and Tye Sheridan at its disposal and did not put out a movie that was in any way equal to the star power of a single one of them – let alone all of them combined. Several of the performances verge on overdrawn which seems linked to the poor translation of the source material to screen.

Dark Places had the story, but wasn't able to use it effectively. Coming from a book as engrossing as this one, with a story and narrative style that are intriguingly executed, this movie is a fantastic example of what cynical movie making can do. This is not a suitable thriller. Save yourself the trouble and just read the book.