Darkness (2009)

AKA T.M.A.

The passing of Juraj Herz in April 2018 was a massive blow to not just fans of eccentric cinema but for world cinema as a whole. Herz was an interesting character from the very beginning of his directorial career. While he could technically be considered part of the Czech New Wave, there were things about his films that set him apart from his Czech counterparts. Early on Herz showed an adeptness for fantastic genre material in the form of The Cremator (1969), a classic horror and black comedy hybrid that highlighted Herz's highly stylized and surreal visual sensibilities. Herz further honed his horror craft with Morgiana (1972) and would later take another somewhat cheeky turn with Ferat Vampire (1982) about a vampyric car that runs on human blood. Like a lot of his fellow Czech directors, Herz also had a particular skill when it came to fairy tales, his take on Beauty and the Beast (1978) standing out as one of the most original takes on the classic tale with its humanoid bird/man hybrid beast. Other films like The Ninth Heart (1979) and The Frog Prince (1991) also showcased Herz's skills at fairy tale storytelling. Herz would make a return to horror one final time later in his career in 2009 with Darkness, a film that, despite its rather anonymously bland title, breathes new life into a classic, tried and true horror film scenario.

Needing some time away from his hard partying ways, Marek, a successful musician, travels back to his childhood home for some rest and relaxation. Almost immediately after arriving however Marek is greeted with hostility from the locals who warn him that the house should have remained vacant. Not long after settling in, Marek begins to feel the presence of others in the house and begins having fragmented flashbacks to his childhood to an incident involving his sister Tereza, who's long been institutionalized. With the otherworldly presences becoming stronger, Marek begins to feel he's losing his mind and seeks the help of a local historian, uncovering the tragic history of his house involving the Nazi's in WWII, all the while Tereza is planning a trip back home.

Both a literal and metaphorical ghost story, Darkness is very much a film about the ghosts of the past rearing their ugly head in the present. The set-up is a classic horror scenario. The old, dark house with a troubled past, unwelcoming locals looking upon the newcomer in town with suspicion and disdain, skeletons in the family closet, all given a fresh spin by Herz. While the film is a literal ghost story in that Marek's house is truly being occupied by specters from beyond, the film's more metaphorical ghosts are represented via Marek's family history, with Tereza becoming an increasingly more important character as the film progresses, the fractured flashbacks giving the impression at times that Marek might possibly be going insane, adding to the already heightened sense of paranoia permeating the film. The ghosts of history also play a major role with the WWII backstory giving the film some pretty heavy emotional weight, the backstories of some of the side characters factoring in as well making things more intriguing. The film differs quite a bit stylistically from Herz's past horrors in favor of a more dreary look and tone which, given the material is understandable and eerily effective, with a sense of mounting dread being sustained for the majority of the film. The well-worn trope of the unfriendly locals feels even slightly more sinister and harsh, and Herz even spices the film up with some jolting bits of gore with have an Italian feel some moments of fierce, nearly X-rated sexuality.

All the WWII elements in the film were added by Herz with screenwriter Martin Nemec calling his original script more “intimate”. The war was a constant reoccurring theme for Herz, himself a Holocaust survivor, most famously fused with horror in The Cremator but also in films such as The Night Overtakes Me (1986) and Habermann (2010). During a behind the scenes look at Darkness, Herz explains his attraction to genre came about from reading fairly tales as a child and his later discovering of Edger Allan Poe, the suspense he felt while reading giving him the urge to create the same type of suspense for people watching his films. Herz would describe himself as a “devout atheist” who, despite loving making films about the supernatural, doesn't believe in it himself. Interesting then that there was an occultist on set who claimed to be in communication with a ghost. Nemec was quick to believe the set was indeed haunted with his laptop disappearing into thin air and the boom operators mic not picking up sound when it would normally pick out sounds from miles away. Darkness certainly sicks out from Herz's other works in the genre due to its modernity but with Herz at the helm all the shortcomings associated with such a term are sidestepped with Herz delivering a fine example of contemporary horror worthy of standing along side his previous genre classics.