They Wait In The Dark

Over my 24 years in health care i have met many poor people who barely have money to pay for food or even their own rent. I have heard some very tragic stories regarding their lives, and in some cases they didn´t always live poor but had no choice because of health issues. I do not believe you should judge someone who lives in poverty, because usually there is a reason to why they are living the way they do. And honestly some of these people living in poverty would help anyone, no matter if they use the last money they have just to help someone else. How many rich people would do that on the street? Not many i can guarantee that. I have personally dropped off clothes and shoes to refugees living in poverty of clothes i no longer use. If you can help someone i think you should, no matter how you do it. I remember back in the early 2000´s me and a working collegue of mine arranged a Christmas dinner for disabled people. We asked everyone to lay a small amount of money in a box and we would use that money we gathered to make a Christmas dinner for everyone. And we did and get plenty of food for a descent price. Of course we had to pick a good price for the Christmas Ham as well as other products but we actually managed to stay within the budget. That Christmas dinner became a lovely evening and the disabled guests had a really good time. Even today almost 20 years later i heard that the disabled people are still talking about the Christmas dinner we arranged that year. Speaking of poverty there are a lot of horror films talking about homeless people or someone struggling to survive on very little money. One of the best especially showing the rough life of being homeless is the 1988 sci fi horror film They Live from legendary director John Carpenter. A film that really showed society how real life looks on the streets and how you suvive, until you discover that the world is taken over by aliens who control our lives daily. Wresting star Roddy Piper did a great performance as homeless worker Nada and the film itself is very interesting for showing how controlled society is. A must watch on DVD or Blu Ray. I recently came across an indendent film called They Wait In The Dark that looked interesting from the poster. I didn´t really know much at all about the plot other than a mother struggling with her son. Is this a film that deserves to be seen this autumn or should you forget about They Wait In The Dark completely and see something else instead?

Amy ( Sarah McGuire ), a young woman is on the run with her son Adrian ( Patrick McGee ) from an abusive ex-girlfriend named Judith ( Laurel Catherine Winkel ). While ordering coffee and some food for Adrian she meets an old friend called Jenny ( Paige Maria ) who offers them to stay at Amy´s child home that´s been abandoned for many years. Having nowhere else to go and not much money at all, Amy have no other option. Not only is she struggling with her past but Amy is about to find out there is something more to be concerned about regarding Adrian.

Even though this film does tell a story of a very poor woman taking care of a young boy, the poverty isn´t the most important message of this film. The most important message of this film is that unless you deal with your past you may never be able to move on with your life. They Wait In The Dark may be made on a very limited budget but i personally think horror films such as this is more interesting than most big budget horror films. When you work on a limited budget you have to be creative and come up with ideas to make it work into the story. And this is something that They Wait In The Dark actualluy manage to do and still make the story interesting. At first i thought this was pretty much a story surrounding a poor mother and her child, and you could say in one way the story does include that. But there is much more going on from the past that we have no knowledge of that is later revealed in the film. And i really appreciate the unexpected twist towards the end because i did not expect that at all. So how is the acting in this film in general? I would say that the best acting performance comes from actress Sarah McGuire as the character Amy. What i find interesting about Amy is that she´s clearly struggling from a very rough past and i feel that Sarah manage to show that in her performance in certain scenes. Child actor Patrick McGee also deliver a solid performance as the young boy Adrian. The horror influences that takes a while to kick in turns out to be quite effective. Especially when we find out what Adrian is really seeing in the house. So now to the negative details. Some of the performances outside of these characters are not very good ( except for the woman playing the spirit she´s ok ). I do feel that certain characters could have been better in their performances. But overall i have to say that They Wait In The Dark susprised me with such an unexpected twist towards the end and i do enjoy this film. Director Patrick Rea manage to make an indepenent horror film in a clever way on such a limited budget. Definetely worth checking out this upcoming Halloween weekend, They Wait In The Dark proves that you can make good horror films compared to big budget releases in cinemas.

Rating: DDD