A woman returns to her family farm house located in the kind of “rural” that one could generously call spooky. She and her daughter move in, following her separation with her husband and the death of her mother. Hubby turns up unannounced (looking like the horrific offspring of David Dastmalchian and Joe Anderson) to blame his affair on her poor mental health… while her mother was mentally deteriorating… yeah, he’s that kind of pud. On top of that human skid-mark showing up, strange noises and other creepiness are adding to the tension. A game of flashlight tag between mother and daughter in the cornfields surrounding the house goes about as well as one would expect but nobody is hurt, just a little shaken up. Her daughter ends up on the roof (doesn’t remember how) and somebody flashes bright-ass lights at momma as she runs through the fields. The sheriff promises she’ll help where she can but she just thinks local kids are fucking with the new neighbors. A little web-sleuthing has mom landing on the goofy idea that lizard-monsters have been around earth for millennia and sometimes they make contact. They just go about it like creepy assholes but they are nefarious things, so I guess that checks. Her ex thinks she’s having another nervous breakdown and believes their daughter isn’t safe with her mother. Annie’s not finding many allies outside of a conspiracy-theorist who is well-versed in the indigenous one-eyed reptile-things. This is all explained through flashback, the movie begins with everything going to hell. Annie’s under arrest after accidentally shotgunning her ex (unfortunately, he’s not killed) and something grabbing her daughter. The sheriff doesn’t buy her story of monsters in the earth and thinks she’s murdered her daughter. Annie manages to escape when there’s a car accident whilst being transported to prison. She heads home to look for her baby girl and save her from the energy-sucking monsters. That conspiracy nut gets involved and gets nibbled on for his troubles and the sheriff hunts down her fugitive, believing Annie’s admittedly insane story too damn late to save herself. Taking what one would expect to be a ghost story and shifting into creature feature territory, Dark Light at least tries to be a little different. The cast is fine and the monster designs are a little silly but they’re practical, so I ain’t complaining. It has everything you would need to bring the fun but sadly it never really shifts out of first gear and that’s a damn shame because it would have truly benefited by going off the rails.
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