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Dark Place (The)
R1 - America - Breaking Glass Pictures Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (5th January 2015). |
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The Film
 "Recovering asshole" Keegan Dark (Blaise Embry) suffers from Hyperthymesia, the possession of a "superior autobiographical memory" which proves annoying in relationships thanks to his total recall, and also painful given his past. Fortunately, his boyfriend Wil's (Timo Descamps) has a compulsion to fix broken things. Nevertheless, Wil is nonplussed when Keegan announces a road trip home to visit his mother for her birthday that takes them to Witches Cave and the Dark Vineyards. It is Keegen, however, who is shocked to discover how much has changed in his absence. His mother Celeste (Shannon Day) has remarried and is no longer the reclusive mess she was after Keegan's father (Harold Phillips) and older brother (Joshua Stenseth) were killed in a car accident rushing an overdosed Keegan to the hospital, and is able to match Keegan's caustic wit with her own brand of humor. His high school friend/lover Ernie (Eduardo Rioseco) – who was busted for the drugs he and Keegan bought and sent to the Preston Youth Correctional Facility – is now an ambitious lawyer who is helping Celeste launch a lucrative IPO on the vineyard (which stopped making wine after her husband died but has been growing special varieties of grapes for winemaking). Keegan makes known his instant dislike to his seemingly sincere stepfather Dr. Adrian Bishop (Andy Copeland) and stepbrother Jake (Sean Paul Lockhart) who is way too close to Celeste (and who he suspects of being the man he witnessed assaulting local waitress Wendy (Genevieve Buechner) despite not having seen his face). Keegan's seemingly baseless suspicions that Adrian and Jake are up to no good are dismissed by his mother and, less bluntly, by Wil who is starting to lose patience with Keegan's lack of openness (even Celeste advises Wil not to kill himself trying to fix her son). After a seemingly unprovoked assault on Jake, Celeste asks Keegan to leave but he accidentally crashes Wil's car and ends up in the hospital and under Adrian's ministrations while Wil tries to learn more about his boyfriend's past from Celeste and Ernie. When he returns home, Keegan has an argument with Wil and wakes up the next morning to find Wil gone and his mother in a coma. Although he conveys his suspicions about Adrian and Jake to the police, Keegan seems to be the more likely suspect for the local sheriff (Allison Lane) – who also suspects he may have been able to engineer the accident that killed his father and brother – since he would benefit not from his mother's death and getting upstanding Adrian and his son out of the picture. Although sold as a gay thriller, this smart directorial debut of Jody Wheeler is more concerned with its plot and production value than simply parading eye candy in front of the camera (and sexuality does not seem to be a point of tension in the familial relationships past or present), with the results seeming more "mainstream" in a non-pejorative sense than of crowdfunded genre product. The overall mystery is rather run-of-the-mill but the execution is refreshing. It is certainly possible that Keegan's suspicions may all be in his head – especially because of the way his mind works (with sights and sounds conjuring vivid visual recollections realized through some not bad digital effects that seem at times like a more sophisticated version of the flashback opticals of De Palma's Dressed to Kill) – and his impulsive behavior makes him seem unstable to some and suspect to others. His biting wit is presented as smug and off-putting rather than clever to the other characters and the audience; however, during the climax, the employment of humor throws the action nicely off-kilter before veering back into dramatic territory (as we learn the mystery of why Keegan with his picture-perfect memory returned home a month late for his mother's birthday). Performances are mostly fine, particularly Day and Descamps, with a few appropriately arch supporting turns (and adult performer Lockhart's sinister turn here is more refined than in the earlier Fatal Attraction-esque Truth). The cinematography of David Berry is of a consistently high standard, and Oregon's Garden Vineyards location is a real visual boon to the production. While continually addressing criticisms to the work within the context of its crowd-funding seems would seem to sell its achievements short, this type of funding is becoming the norm for smaller films (and some bigger films by people who might easily secure funding from more traditional sources if not their own deep pockets); and the filmmakers of The Dark Place also have the benefit of experience in this arena with their previous feature Judas Kiss, and the results here suggest that the project had been thoroughly developed before the viral pitch than some other examples.
Video
Although the back cover of Breaking Glass Pictures' disc states that the film's aspect ratio is 2.4:1, the actual framing on their progressive, anamorphic transfer is 1.78:1. The image - lensed with the Red Scarlet camera - is well-framed and exhibits no signs of cropping (nor does it look like it could sustain scope matting), and the encode is clean and free of distracting defects apart from a little noise in a couple night exterior shots.   
Audio
Breaking Glass' cover also erroneously states that the audio is stereo, but the track on the disc is actually Dolby Digital 5.1. The mix is largely front-oriented but the surrounds become more active during the flashbacks and scenes in which the protagonist's memories impeded upon the present. English closed-captions are also included.   
Extras
Extras start off with an audio commentary by director Jody Wheeler and actress Allison Lane (who plays the sheriff) who start off talking about how they each met the producers, how the concepts for the memory visual effects evolved in post-production, the two estates in Oregon used for the main location (and filming around tours), the other cast members, some character subtext that might elude the viewers, the support of the producers, and Lane's initial reaction to one of the kinkier twists while reading the script for the first time. The "Alternate Opening Spin" (3:14) is an alternate take of the introductory scene for Keegan and Wil that is shot as a series of arc shots circling the two at a table. It feels a little rougher performance-wise and has not been color-corrected so the raw video looks rather bland.    The deleted scenes (1:13) is actually a single scene extending a confrontation between Keegan and Jake more effectively (in the commentary, the director explains that it did not cut together well). The series of Kickstarter videos will be of interest mostly to filmmakers looking for ideas of how to promote their films on crowd-funding sites but one includes actor Descamps promoting the film while another features the film's writer/director and producers which also highlights his previous producing credit on Charlie David's Judas Kiss (which also featured Lockhart) as well as their forthcoming Something Like Summer. In one segment, the cinematographer joins in to discuss the practical reasons for wanting to use the expensive Red Scarlet 4K camera. The remainder of the extras are a photo gallery (4:05) and trailer (1:47) for the film, as well as trailers for four other Breaking Glass titles: Coldwater, 4 Moons, Southern Baptist Sissies, and Last Summer.
Overall
Beneath the very DTV-looking cover art of The Dark Place lurks an assured feature debut and a well-realized and -executed spin on familiar thriller trappings.   
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