What is it about old thrillers from the technicolor 1960’s and 1970’s that are so riveting to me? From the moment I saw them on Channel 5 out of Washington, or WDCA-Channel 20 or Boston Channel 38 when I would visit relatives, there was an element of specifically British and European as well as Japanese Thriller and Horror films that always drew me into their gaze. The acting, the camera close-ups, the music, the top-notch technical credits, etc. As a kid, I always felt like I was getting away with something when I would turn on the family television on a late weekend afternoon in the 1970’s and 80’s and watch Fifteen minutes of Hitchcock’s “Marnie” or “Mirage” with Gregory Peck or any Hammer Horror film, for instance. I recently came across a film from this era that caught my attention for it’s timely early 1970’s look, sound and pacing. Also, it’s melodramatic theatrical trailer drew me in with pretentious mood-setting methods; obvious, yet still effective.
1970’s “And Soon the Darkness” apparently has had a forgettable remake made a few years ago. The original had a socially liberated look about it’s London-based main Female characters, other than that the film only contains a few characters, but they are enough to keep the viewer, in this case me, increasingly invested in what I was watching. Directed by Robert Fuest, who went on to direct the absolutely insane 1975 Horror film “The Devil’s Rain”, “And Soon the Darkness” is done with reverence to Hitchcock; it’s hokey at times and telegraphs itself in spots, but the style and atmosphere of it had me hooked, this did not look expensive to make, but the tech credits appear top-shelf. Cinematographer Ian Wilson makes rural France look rich and colorful, the Female protagonists begin the film on a bike trip through France. Two young Twenty-something English girls, Jane and Cathy (played by Pamela Franklin and Michele Dotrice) go on a bicycle trip through a swath of the French countryside, they have very few belongings, it’s Summertime. They seem to have a thought-out triptych, they plan to bike during the day through the countryside and then lodge at villages at night along their route. Both are young and attractive, one is Blonde, the other Brunette.
The premise drew me in from the knowledge of stories of Women taking trips by themselves in the 1960’s and early 1970’s and society considering it risky and daring. This movie perhaps had an ear to the train tracks of current society and was part a story that could trendily take advantage upon modern fears as a way of influencing patrons to see the film. Either way, the idea that a 100-minute long movie concerning Two unchaperoned girls taking a trip on bikes through the French Countryside being stalked by an unseen assailant would be so atmospherically compelling is perhaps an anomaly. However, this movie, in a construct that now has been done almost to death metaphorically, feels remarkably fresh and creative.
In a brief amount of time, say the first third of the movie, one of the girls goes missing and the other’s day begins to unravel from there, this movie almost feels like it’s transpiring in real time. As mentioned before, it is done with a Hitchcockian tone, the script by Brian Clemens and Terry Nation(known for their work on the popular TV show “The Avengers” with Diana Rigg) is somewhat gimmicky, the movie telegraphs a couple of fake-outs, but the tonal fog that the film attempts to create is there, and there is certainly more to talk about with this film than the future cinematic offspring of films such as this, this seems like a potential ancestor of what would become known as the slasher film in later years. This particular flick is a sterling example of how a great musical score can amplify a film. I recently came across some AI-generated review of this movie while scouring around on Youtube and the review claimed that “And Soon the Darkness” had very little to no music and I had so many thoughts. This movie has a fantastic score, it’s part of the cast, in my opinion. Either the reviewer was a bot who didn’t realize it was listening to music while “viewing” the film or I have some really fantastical Tinnitus going on. So many Horror films from the post-orchestral era downgraded their films with mediocre and/or rudimentary and amateur-sounding music. In some ways, “And Soon the Darkness” feels like a cinematic exercise, the grand prize winner of some film school contest.
Despite it’s flimsy build, the manner in which this film flows and looks feels like it’s a Woman-in-peril movie taking place in a strange land. This circumstance is accentuated when the heroine can only find people who try to assist her in French. While she meets an occasional Anglo, she is stuck around locals who don’t understand her nor she them. She is desperate to find someone she can trust to help her find her friend. She also thinks she is being stalked while she searches for her friend. While this kind of narrative and plot has been done to death over the last few decades, this movie feels fresh in its’ portrayal of what now feels like trod-upon material. A young Woman pulls off to the side of the road in a foreign country, lays down and covers herself with lotion while she lays in the tall grass off the road and takes a nap, near the bushes. Who else does that except hot-looking Women? We the audience soon learn that another young pretty girl had been killed on this road within the last couple of years.
I’ve mentioned certain brands of shlock this movie could be pigeon-holed as being a forerunner of, what about movies that could be held in high regard that could be descendants? For starters, the spooky and highly regarded 1988 film” The Vanishing” seems related, as does Aussie Director Peter Weir’s 1975 film “Picnic at Hanging Rock”. A third film that feels relevant off the top of my head is Wes Craven’s 1977 shocker “The Hills Have Eyes”. All of these films have an effect of tension heightened by isolation. This entire movie takes place in daytime, yet through the title we are promised something worse when night falls. In all of the films previously mentioned, we get a sense that something truly awful and menacing is watching the protagonists, but we’re not sure what.
The script to “And Soon the Darkness” and the pacing by Director Fuest add a noir touch of there being peripheral locals who live on this route who the girls can’t decipher if they are friends or foes and why. For starters, most of the locals only speak French and there are no subtitles to contribute to a helpless tone. A mysterious English Woman, played by Clare Kelly, appears to pique the viewer’s curiosity and provide local background to one of the girls, but this older and mysterious character seems like more of a diversion as much of a possible savior. A mystery Male character, played by Sandor Eles, appears early in the film and his presence is felt throughout, but we’re not sure why, either, but his presence appears to have an impact on whatever is about to go down. Other peripheral local French characters seem like villagers from a Werewolf movie; tight-lipped, on edge, neither helpful nor obstructive, potentially superstitious, they seem to know more than they let on.
The music score by Composer Laurie Johnson is spot on, it sounds dramatically like Bernard Hermann down to the foghorn Bassoons and low Woodwinds, the music is used perfectly for my taste, down to the annoying pop music theme that sounds like something between Herb Albert’s Mariachi Brass and an ancillary track for an NFL Films’ highlight show, I couldn’t get the theme out of my head for days and the accompanying thought of Johnny Unitas dropping back to pass in slow motion. The song was akin to a fake out, putting the viewer and the onscreen protagonist into a false sense of security, whereas something sinister is bubbling up to the surface. Johnson’s score with it’s accent-note filled tension gives the film melodramatic depth; where later slasher films were just about the obvious sexual overtones of visceral chases and random scenes of gruesome climactic death scenes, this film feels more pointed and twisted from a psychological sense. Our girls aren’t just targets because they are alone and in a strange land, their feminine freedom and their projected liberating personas make them a target like Easy Rider in the South. It’s what they represent. Their unintentional sexuality makes them scorned by the ordinary local rubes for reigniting their impulses and sets the psychologically deranged one(s) into a downward spiral. Out of sight, out of mind. The movie does not victim blame nor shame, but if these were two frumpy-looking chicks in baggy clothes, this flick would just be a travelogue.
Our girls here aren’t THAT forward, but they are sexy and the Blonde played by Michelle Dotrice openly mentions early on that she wouldn’t mind getting some action. Her and Pamela Franklin openly discuss the agendas of various forms of Male European; “Do they grab your bum here?” One girl asks the other, “No, dear, that’s Italy” is the reply. While Dotrice plays a flirtatious type, Pamela Franklin’s character is a bit more reserved. As a viewer I tended to sympathize more with the Franklin character, which is intentional writing. Her compassion is part of her flawed vulnerability, she has a dual purpose as potential clever heroine and/or targeted victim. I was pleasantly surprised to learn of her appearance in other famous British gothic Horror flicks; she is one of the observers in the spooky “Legend of Hell House” from 1973 as well as she played one of the two possessed children in the classic British Horror masterpiece “The Innocents” from 1960. She is less of a scream queen, and more of a look terrified and flee queen
While the peripheral supports are obvious here, they are effective nonetheless. These characters could be found in films from prior decades, they don’t say much, they don’t have to. The rural Male characters leer at the Women, we can’t tell if it’s due simply to Male surly behavior or the girls’ presence has awoken a dark impulse inside them. The Female locals seem to look at the girls with a disapproving eye, that in their minds, the girls are begging for trouble with their appearance and behavior, which only involves the girls being out for a cross-country bike ride in shorts, blouses and hip sandals. The girls seem to think that the local beatific landscape is a mirror for those that toil in it’s fields, but that is a misconception, in this particular area it seems to be inhabited by dim bulbs, older Women on the edge and at least one murderous local stalker.
But just as rural England isn’t the only place full of drunken and murderous local rednecks as portrayed in Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 classic “Straw Dogs” or the woods of Georgia the only place to find rapacious inbreds as found in John Boorman’s blistering 1972 survival film “Deliverance”, “And Soon the Darkness” isn’t indicting rural France, the film is merely reminding us that pretty girls can get stalked, abducted, raped and murdered anywhere, it’s not a series of activities exclusive to one geographic area. This film on the internet keeps getting labeled as Horror, I suppose by 1970 standards it is. Seems more like a thriller to me by today’s standards. There’s nothing supernatural or grotesque or gory about this movie, it is simply unnerving and pernicious, it feels more like a drawn-out more modern looking Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode than anything other-worldly. Even without a very high-profile body count, there is something insidious about this movie; if you have stuck with it after the first 45 minutes, you are engrossed, it’s got you and not letting go.
While screenwriters Clemens and Nation do employ obvious narrative trick and ploys to set up the film’s conclusion into a guessing game for viewers, the movie’s conflict in my mind becomes as much about why can’t Women have recreational alone time and look pretty while doing so without having to fear the visual and physical pursuit of them by the sexually repressed and deviant? These aren’t girl archetypes from later slasher films that wander into taboo haunted houses, graveyards or trying to fuck in the back of some kid’s Mustang on a dark road, these girls are just going for a cross country bike ride in the middle of the day in a First World Country, sheesh. In my mind, that’s part of the climate that makes this little thriller so tense and effective, that the filmmakers create a terrible ambiance out of scenery that appears totally non-threatening and serene. What might sound boring to you, long panning shots of open roadway with the minimalist sounds of singing birds, chirping bugs, occasional car engines and intermittent transistor radio broadcast news and songs (in undecipherable French, of course) eventually creates a building anxiety as you view the movie. We know something bad has happened. We think we know the perspective parameters of what to be afraid of here, but we’re again not totally sure of anything and the locals aren’t helping, they’re just babbling on in French with no subtitles, we can’t get spoon-fed anything.
Essentially four things propel this movie and make it worth a watch; the performance of Franklin as the heroine, the look of the film given by the cinematographer and the locales, the perfect tension-filled film score and the directorial style of Fuest. Even the latter’s approach borders on procedural, his attention to detail, both vital details and false flag ones, give the viewer imagery to ponder. He takes very familiar and mundane surroundings and creates something ominous and memorable. One sequence in particular takes place in an abandoned French rural trailer park. It doesn’t look frightening at first, but five or ten minutes in, you’ll be talking to the screen. “Don’t go in there” or “don’t make a sound, stupid” will be things you hear yourself think as the haunted house trope suddenly comes alive in your mind. “And Soon the Darkness” says a lot through it’s staging and music without saying it out loud, it is definitely a film that can sell itself by virtue of it’s surface plot and as an added bonus, smart people can watch this and read between the lines and come away having something to discuss as well.
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