BENEATH THE DARKNESS

US, 2011, 96 minutes, Colour.
Dennis Quaid, Aimee Teegarden, Tony Oller, Stephen Lunsford, Devon Werkheiser.
Directed by Martin Guigui.

Beneath the Darkness is a mixture of serial killer genre, high school students friendship drama, touches of horror.

The film opens with a ghastly murder, committed by Dennis Quaid as the local mortician. Time passes – and there is discussion about ghosts in his house. One of the young people, Travis, cuts the mortician’s lawn. They return and see the mortician dancing with what seems to be a ghost in his house. As they intrude, they are caught, one of the young people is killed by the mortician. The police won't believe the teenagers because the mortician has such respectability in the community, was a famous quarterback in football when he was young.

However, the young people continue their confrontation with the mortician, he wounds them, abducts the girl and hides her in his wife’s coffin. He had preserved his wife, keeping her in the house, dancing with her.

However, he is quite mad, seemingly respectable and the police believe him. The truth is that his wife was unfaithful, he buried her lover alive, was still infatuated with his wife even though she had betrayed him. The film builds up to a melodramatic climax, the coffin, the fight between Travis and the mortician – and his being interned in an institution.

The film is more respectable than most films of this kind, given the cast and treatment. The director, Martin Guigui, is from Argentina.

The film is more a mainstream drama than an example of the horror genre – and horror genre people will probably be disappointed.

1. The title? The night? The house at night? The cemetery? The graves?

2. The local town, the high school, the young people and their homes? Their behaviour at school, their friendship? The house, the touch of the haunted? The musical score?

3. The focus on Ely, his madness, his role as a mortician, his jogging, his meeting John on the road, his abducting him, putting him in the grave, burying him alive – with the torch? The later revelation of what John had done, the betrayal with Ely’s wife? Or did he imagine this?

4. The focus on the young people, at school, their friendship? The scenes together? Abby and her family? Brian and his crassness? Travis and his sensitivity? Danny and his fooling around? The sports background? Classes? The teacher and her interest in drama, the rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth? The literary references? Brian and his not understanding? Abby and Travis and their bonds?

5. Suspicions of Ely, going to the house, seeing the silhouette of his dancing? The decision to go into the house? Their being caught? Danny and the confrontation, Ely pushing him down the stairs, stamping on his head? Travis witnessing? The police, the investigation, Ely giving a good account of himself? Suspicions against the young people?

6. Travis and Abby, the decision to go into the house again? Ely appearing? Abby, the abduction, her being put in the grave? Travis and his being shot? The doctor, the warnings? His return to the house?

7. Ely and his bizarre behaviour, with Abby, keeping her alive? The two in the van? Getting out? Travis confronting Ely at the grave, his being forced to dig it as John was, the coffin? Abby and her putting on Ely’s wife’s dress – her being in the van as well? Her pretending to be his wife? Ely’s confusion? His being overcome?

8. The end, Abby and Travis, rescued? Ely and his sitting in the cell?