Six settlers arrive in a Scottish forest 45,000 years ago, where ‘bloodthirsty things’ await but bathos fails to arrive
‘Forty-five thousand years ago …” So begins this ambitious, confident feature debut from Scottish director Andrew Cumming. It’s a horror movie set in the stone age where a poor old early human is yomping about the Highlands in winter; no Gore-Tex or warm pub, just a tough bit of elk meat to chew on and the odd run-in with a hairy Neanderthal. What a god-awfully grim time to be alive – even before things go bump in the night.
The premise is simple: this movie is “Alien in the stone age”. It begins with six intrepid early humans washing up on a Highlands beach, all of them quickly and efficiently sketched out as characters. Adem (Chuku Modu) is in charge and evidently sees himself as a mighty leader of men. He’s travelling...
‘Forty-five thousand years ago …” So begins this ambitious, confident feature debut from Scottish director Andrew Cumming. It’s a horror movie set in the stone age where a poor old early human is yomping about the Highlands in winter; no Gore-Tex or warm pub, just a tough bit of elk meat to chew on and the odd run-in with a hairy Neanderthal. What a god-awfully grim time to be alive – even before things go bump in the night.
The premise is simple: this movie is “Alien in the stone age”. It begins with six intrepid early humans washing up on a Highlands beach, all of them quickly and efficiently sketched out as characters. Adem (Chuku Modu) is in charge and evidently sees himself as a mighty leader of men. He’s travelling...
- 2/20/2024
- by Cath Clarke
- The Guardian - Film News
Between apocalyptic disaster films and cosmic terrors à la Lovecraft, the horror genre has the theoretical end of humanity pretty well covered. But what about its beginning?
In Andrew Cumming’s magnificent directorial debut “Out of Darkness,” the filmmaker reverses at full speed into the unknown with an imaginative and gruesome wilderness thriller tracking a group of nomads living 45,000 years ago. Part prehistoric “Prey,” part agnostic spin on The Book of Genesis, the film was written by Ruth Greenberg, and premiered under the more sci-fi sounding title “The Origin” at the BFI Film Festival in 2022. The moniker change is just the latest in a line of nuanced creative decisions that makes this ferocious 87-minute monster movie a testament to meticulous storytelling: a scrupulous feat made even more effective by the film’s use of Stone Age brutality and stark narrative simplicity.
Shot in the Scottish Highlands, this existential campfire story...
In Andrew Cumming’s magnificent directorial debut “Out of Darkness,” the filmmaker reverses at full speed into the unknown with an imaginative and gruesome wilderness thriller tracking a group of nomads living 45,000 years ago. Part prehistoric “Prey,” part agnostic spin on The Book of Genesis, the film was written by Ruth Greenberg, and premiered under the more sci-fi sounding title “The Origin” at the BFI Film Festival in 2022. The moniker change is just the latest in a line of nuanced creative decisions that makes this ferocious 87-minute monster movie a testament to meticulous storytelling: a scrupulous feat made even more effective by the film’s use of Stone Age brutality and stark narrative simplicity.
Shot in the Scottish Highlands, this existential campfire story...
- 2/9/2024
- by Alison Foreman
- Indiewire
Beginning with a rip-off of the (depending on who you ask) iconic Scott Free Productions logo––albeit with a rabbit instead of bird––I knew I was in for something deeply derivative with Out of Darkness. And perhaps that technically proficient-if-soulless feel that defines many of one Scott brother is what particularly shapes this new horror picture. It’s essentially a prehistoric slasher, the film’s opening taking place around a spooky campfire tale that, for one, makes clear its lineage back to the original Friday the 13th. Yet the stock butchered teenagers of that franchise were honestly preferable company to the muddy, grunting Before Common Era folk we’re stuck with.
Certainly there’s a heavier pall over this group, like pregnancy and the lineage, as we follow the family unit of leader Adem (Chuku Modu), doted-over son Heron (Luna Mwezi), and the bun-in-the-oven Ave (Iola Evans). Accompanying them...
Certainly there’s a heavier pall over this group, like pregnancy and the lineage, as we follow the family unit of leader Adem (Chuku Modu), doted-over son Heron (Luna Mwezi), and the bun-in-the-oven Ave (Iola Evans). Accompanying them...
- 2/9/2024
- by Ethan Vestby
- The Film Stage
As we’re now deep into the middle of the first quarter of the “cinema year” of 2024, here comes yet another horror thriller creeping into the multiplexes. And just what sets this one apart from the other “spook-taculars”? Well, it does concern a disparate group of chiller flick tropes all fighting for survival as their companions are picked off “one by one”. Not unique, but this one’s setting is very different. This story takes place on the desolate landscape of this planet over 45,000 years ago. And no, in case you’re wondering, CGI-created kajiu aren’t the culprits. But something strange and weird is roaming about, an entity or creature (perhaps plural) that’s stalking this group, then striking from Out Of Darkness.
We first meet this motley “tribe” huddled around a flickering fire surrounded by pitch black. A preteen lad named Heron (Luna Mwezi) pleads with his father...
We first meet this motley “tribe” huddled around a flickering fire surrounded by pitch black. A preteen lad named Heron (Luna Mwezi) pleads with his father...
- 2/9/2024
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Stars: Chuku Modu, Luna Mwezi, Iola Evans, Kit Young, Arno Lüning, Safia Oakley-Green | Written by Ruth Greenberg | Directed by Andrew Cumming
I can almost imagine Out of Darkness’ director Andrew Cumming pitching the film to potential backers as Quest for Fire meets Predator. And that would be a fairly accurate description of this Stone Age thriller about a tribe of early humans being picked off by an unseen foe. And one that makes it sound a lot less cerebral and more commercial than it might otherwise appear.
45,000 years ago, six early humans have left their tribe to find a new home. Leading the group is Adem, who also has his young son Heron and Ave who’s carrying Adem’s child along with him. Also making the trek are Geirr, Adem’s more cautious second-in-command and Odal’s who seems to be some kind of shaman and last, and certainly least,...
I can almost imagine Out of Darkness’ director Andrew Cumming pitching the film to potential backers as Quest for Fire meets Predator. And that would be a fairly accurate description of this Stone Age thriller about a tribe of early humans being picked off by an unseen foe. And one that makes it sound a lot less cerebral and more commercial than it might otherwise appear.
45,000 years ago, six early humans have left their tribe to find a new home. Leading the group is Adem, who also has his young son Heron and Ave who’s carrying Adem’s child along with him. Also making the trek are Geirr, Adem’s more cautious second-in-command and Odal’s who seems to be some kind of shaman and last, and certainly least,...
- 2/7/2024
- by Jim Morazzini
- Nerdly
Movies about Stone Age life have been so few that just one past effort could be taken seriously, the rest being funny — intentionally or otherwise. Belatedly offering non-laughable companionship to Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1981 “Quest for Fire” is “Out of Darkness,” a lean, mean adventure story on the cusp of horror that firsttime feature director Andrew Cumming imbues with tension and handsome visual atmospherics.
Titled “The Origin” when it premiered at BFI London Fest in fall 2022, since retitled (presumably to avoid confusion with Ava DuVernay’s current “Origin”), it’s a strong genre piece lent real novelty by being set approximately 45,000 years ago. Bleecker Street opens the U.K. indie production on more than 500 U.S. screens this Friday, simultaneous with a home-turf release.
We meet our protagonists around a campfire — unlike those of “Quest,” set circa 80,000 B.C., these prehistoric ancestors have figured that much out — as they air hopes...
Titled “The Origin” when it premiered at BFI London Fest in fall 2022, since retitled (presumably to avoid confusion with Ava DuVernay’s current “Origin”), it’s a strong genre piece lent real novelty by being set approximately 45,000 years ago. Bleecker Street opens the U.K. indie production on more than 500 U.S. screens this Friday, simultaneous with a home-turf release.
We meet our protagonists around a campfire — unlike those of “Quest,” set circa 80,000 B.C., these prehistoric ancestors have figured that much out — as they air hopes...
- 2/5/2024
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
"Danger is everywhere." Signature Entertainment in the UK has unveiled their own official UK trailer for the survival thriller titled Out of Darkness, set during the Old Stone Age, some 45,000 years ago. It's opening in theaters nationwide (in the US) this week, in the UK later in Feb. This originally premiered at the 2022 London Film Festival a year ago, as it's a British production, and it's finally getting released this year. In the Stone Age, a disparate gang of early humans band together in search of a new land. As night falls, ominous sounds shatter the idea they are alone. Fear grips the group, relationships unravel, trust fractures, and the relentless pursuit of survival unveils dark secrets. When they suspect a malevolent, mystical, being is hunting them down, the clan are forced to confront a danger they have never envisaged. The cast is lead by Safia Oakley-Green as Beyah, Chuku Modu as Adem,...
- 2/5/2024
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
The elemental tale of man versus nature is one that we’ve been telling since the days of cave paintings. The tale of man versus a big, scary creature has been one of that tradition’s most reliably entertaining iterations since the dawn of Hollywood, and Andrew Cumming’s Stone Age thriller Out of Darkness makes for a worthy addition.
The film is set 45,000 years ago. After making a daring journey across the sea, a small band of Stone Agers have arrived in an unfamiliar place that they hope to call home. Sadly, this place isn’t the land of milk, honey, and warm, cozy caves that they’d been dreaming of. Rather, it’s a gray and barren place where rough, rocky hills seem to roll out endlessly in all directions. It makes for a dispiriting landscape during the day, and it’s even worse when darkness falls and...
The film is set 45,000 years ago. After making a daring journey across the sea, a small band of Stone Agers have arrived in an unfamiliar place that they hope to call home. Sadly, this place isn’t the land of milk, honey, and warm, cozy caves that they’d been dreaming of. Rather, it’s a gray and barren place where rough, rocky hills seem to roll out endlessly in all directions. It makes for a dispiriting landscape during the day, and it’s even worse when darkness falls and...
- 2/4/2024
- by Ross McIndoe
- Slant Magazine
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