Dark Nature is a British horror film that is good in some ways but for the most part is a poorly written, poorly produced, and poorly acted movie. There are certain aspects that will entertain audiences, but there is really no twisting or manipulating of the plot that creates enough suspense for anyone to be surprised or enthralled by the ending.
The beginning of the movie opens with a pretty music number on piano and some violin I think that loops twice before we get to the actual opening scene. Its actually supposed to be scary, suspenseful sounding music, which it is, but I also find it pretty. The music was one of the few things I actually really enjoyed about this movie. However, this one music number gets looped throughout the movie at least 7 times and for those of you who don't find it appealing, it will get annoying after a while. But as for me, I found it very refreshing and I thought it did a good job of setting the eerie tone throughout the entire movie.
In the opening scene, Mrs. Petrie (Dorren McGillivray) gets murdered by her husband Jonathan (James Bryce) and then a few minutes later, Jonathan himself is murdered by someone else. These two individuals are the parents of the main character, Jane Petrie (Vanya Eadie). Jane and her family, consisting of her lover Sean (Callum Warren-Brooker) and two children Chloe (Imogen Toner) and Alex (Len McCaffer) travel to her parents' house in the remote wilderness of Scotland for vacation (unaware that her parents are dead). Jane's two friends Emily (Joanna Miller) and Gary are also there to join them. In addition, an environmentalist (Tom Carter) is also in the area studying wildlife and videotaping experiments he performs with them, and there's a gamekeeper (Niall Greig Fulton) for the house as well. All of the characters are basically stalked and killed off one by one by the same person who killed Jonathan in the opening scene.
Ok, time for all my complaints about this movie. The plot is number one. I do want to say that the killer's motive which you find out at the end of the movie is actually not a bad one, but the identity of the killer is actually revealed only halfway through the movie and to be honest, it's pretty obvious who the killer is from the very beginning. Most movies like this will surprise the audience by making the killer someone they would never expect it to be but in this case, there are really two obvious candidates and its one of these two people that ends up being the murderer. The plot doesn't keep the audience guessing like it should and without this heightened suspense, the movie is really just about people getting killed and nothing else. There is really no flavor to the plot as a result. You will NOT be surprised to find out who the killer is and the ending will NOT have you on the edge of your seat wondering what will happen next.
The other thing about this movie that was tedious was really pointless and sometimes disgusting scenes that have no relevance to the plot whatsoever. For example, in one part of the movie the environmentalist is shown cutting up and working on different bugs. In another instance, the gamekeeper is shown cutting up a fish in half. Although you could argue that moments like these are good because they disgust the audience, to me they seem really tedious and have no point even being in the movie at all. there's really not much to say about the acting; it was okay. Nothing spectacular.
In addition, there were a couple of instances where common sense was ignored. Nowhere near as bad as in Blood Runs Cold (2013), but still enough for me to bring it up. For example, at the end, Jane is faced with the killer and she is holding a knife behind her back and for some reason the killer doesn't see that she is holding something behind her back. Wtf?????? So moments like that once again just really become annoying and tedious.
The other thing that I did like about this movie though was that the killings were actually pretty cool. One of the characters gets stabbed through the roof of her car. I thought that was pretty exhilirating. So I give the movie credit for its gruesome murder scenes.
Overall, for me, I don't mind watching this movie over and over again purely for the kill scenes and the music. Nonetheless, this is not a good film by any stretch of the imagination and I do not recommend that you waste your valuable time watching this one. If you like cool music and brutal killings in horror movies though, then give it a shot. But don't expect to be shocked by anything at all and you didn't get the recommendation to watch this from me.
BaD BiRdS: Bad
~MJ Aufiero
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