THE DARK (2018)

Austria. Direction: Justin P. Lange. Codirection: Klemens Hufnagl. Production: Danny Krausz, Kurt Stocker, Laura Perlmutter, Andrew Nicholas McCann Smith / DOR FILM. Screenplay: Justin P. Lange. Photography: Klemens Hufnagl. Edition: Julia Drack. Cast: Nadia Alexander, Toby Nichols, Karl Markovics, Sarah Murphy-Dyson, Daniel Beirne. Running time: 96 min

LANGUAGE: English / SUBTITLES: Spanish

It participated with great honour in New York’s Tribeca festival, the one that supports folk from the mean streets like De Niro. It’s directed by a Columbia graduate; a boy who as a kid always knew that when his parents turned off the light and closed his bedroom door that there was something in the dark. Not necessarily evil or malignant. Like Mina herself, a young undead, a teenage zombie, who still inhabits the house where bad things happened. It feeds on the same stuff that feeds the walking dead, but with feeling. One day she’ll come across a boy who’s also abused. Alive. And blind. That’s the start of a film that is/isn’t about zombies and is/isn’t a horror flick. And that feels powerful enough to talk about abuse. About harassment. About affection.