Though Coming Home in the Dark opens as a tense thriller that hinges on a seemingly random act of violence, James Ashcroft’s debut feature unfurls into a gritty meditation on the insidious ripple effect of trauma. Using his homeland as a scenic backdrop in the film’s opening scenes, the New Zealand director (who co-wrote the script with Eli Kent) wastes no time juxtaposing majestic natural beauty with unnatural malice. Rather than dwell on the violence, however, this stark film digs deep into the psychology of victimization, survival instinct, the bystander effect and the futility of vengeance, all within the span of a tidy 93 minutes.
An idyllic family picnic in the countryside is shattered with the intrusion of two drifters who are intent on using the remote locale as an easy venue for armed robbery. The steely, loquacious Mandrake (Daniel Gillies) exudes a chillingly calm demeanor as he menaces the family with a veneer of friendly banter while his stoic partner Tubs (Matthias Luafutu) rifles through their things. Married couple Hoaggie (Erik Thomson) and Jill (Miriama McDowell) are more than happy to hand over wallets and the keys to their SUV if it means keeping Jill’s sons (real-life brothers Billy and Frankie Paratene) safe. When one of the boys lets slip Hoaggie’s distinctive nickname, Mandrake’s ears perk up, and he soon connects the dots that they have crossed paths with Hoaggie, a schoolteacher, many years before in less than pleasant circumstances.
This revelation spurs unnervingly threatening psychopathy into violent action, and following the shocking outburst, Mandrake and Tubs commandeer the SUV and drive the remnants of a fractured family down the dark highway toward some untold destination. During this hellish ride, Mandrake waxes philosophical in lieu of radio reception, and the driving tension isn’t so much whether various crafty escape attempts will be successful—there’s a distinct tone of inevitable doom throughout—but rather in the slow but gradual increase of despair that takes hold of Hoaggie as it becomes clearer to him how his own actions and inactions in the distant past have prompted his nightmarish present.
The bleakness of this film can scarcely be overstated. Hoaggie’s past tendency to stand idly by while others are imperiled ultimately causes him to freeze like a deer in headlights here too, and in this way the violence that befalls this family is a horrific echo of one man’s passivity in the face of depravity. His character does learn to fight back, but perhaps only when his own neck is on the line, making his efforts too little and far too late. As Mandrake bluntly points out when the family’s only rescue attempt is missed due to inaction, when they look back on this experience, that was the moment they’d wish they’d done something. This is true on several levels for Hoaggie, and that he gradually realizes his own inadequacy—and that the penalty for his personal flaws is so disproportionately administered—makes Coming Home in the Dark a devastating portrait of both brutal coincidence and inevitable comeuppance.
Photo courtesy of Stan Alley/Dark Sky Films
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