Darklands

Director: Julian Richards
Starring: Craig Fairbrass, Jon Finch, Rowena King, Roger Nott
Production Budget: US$750,000
Running Time: 90 min

Darklands follows journalist Frazer Truick as he investigates the mysterious death of the brother of trainee journalist Rachel Morris. Delving deeper, Truick becomes convinced that the tragedy was murder, committed by a bizarre religious cult. But as the evidence unfolds, things take on a more sinister and potentially lethal significance for the reporter, as he becomes embroiled in devil worship, witchcraft and ultimately human sacrifice!

Summary written by Julian Richards

The fact that the writer/director had to write his own plot summary on IMDB sums up the lack of interest in this movie. Just to rub it in, there are no trivia and no goof listings.

"Darklands, a 1996 Welsh horror film." - The complete text of the Wikipedia listing.

This movie will probably never be mentioned without being linked with The Wicker Man, which is a shame. It's not that the films aren't similar, (they are) it's more that mentioning the similarities between Darklands and such an iconic film a) belittles this film, and b) ruins the ending which would otherwise come as a shock. It is perhaps because of this that whereas the ending of The Wicker Man is rather drawn out, the ending here is quick and brutal - perhaps Richards realised that the ending would be widely known beforehand, so there was no point dwelling.

Julian Richards admitted before the screening that he didn't know everything about film-making when he made Darklands, which was released in 1996, and for the DVD release he has re-edited the film, removing 7 min that were either awkward (including taking out a sex scene: who has ever done that voluntarily?) or slowed the first act. This 'director's cut' was what we saw at Bloodbath, and while I have not seen the original for comparison, I was pretty satisfied with this version. After the film, Richards complained that he was forced to use Craig Fairbrass in the main role due to a pre-existing contract Fairbrass had with the financiers. He felt that Fairbrass was not suited to the role, but, even so, I thought he was quite good, and certainly the biggest presence in the movie. The other performances are also pretty good.

While others would complain that Darklands is derivative, there are some original elements which I really liked. One particular scene which I found particularly cool (although it may be just me) was when Truik is filling his car up at a petrol station, when the police arrive. He asks the attendant where the toilets are (cliché), then climbs out the window of the toilet (cliché) and flees through the backyard where he has to scale a barbed wire fence. All clichés up to this point. But then, instead of barely escaping with torn clothing as you'd expect, he gets stuck on the fence, rips his leg open, and gets arrested and taken to hospital. Like I said, cool.

I believe this is the best Welsh horror film I have ever seen.

$$$1/2