When the Lights Go Out, the Logic Goes With It
There are bad horror movies, and then there are horror movies so mind-numbingly dull that you start rooting for mercury poisoning just to feel something. Out of the Dark (2014) — not to be confused with the dozen other films with the same name that are infinitely more watchable — is a supernatural thriller that manages to make haunted Colombian children, industrial greed, and Julia Stiles somehow boring.
Directed by Lluís Quílez and starring Stiles, Scott Speedman, and Stephen Rea (who, bless him, must have gotten lost on his way to a better movie), Out of the Dark tries to blend ghost story with corporate conspiracy. Instead, it ends up feeling like a half-hearted PSA about workplace safety — if OSHA employed poltergeists.
Plot: Haunted by the Spirit of Bad Screenwriting
The movie kicks off in 1992 with a doctor, Andres Contreras Sr., who’s trying to burn evidence in his creepy Colombian estate. He’s interrupted by ghostly children who apparently hate proper disposal procedures, and they chase him until he dramatically plummets off a balcony. The audience, meanwhile, plummets into confusion.
Fast-forward twenty years: Sarah (Julia Stiles) and Paul (Scott Speedman) move from London to Colombia with their daughter Hannah because Sarah’s father, Jordan (Stephen Rea), runs a paper mill and apparently believes that family bonding requires relocating to a house with a clearly cursed dumbwaiter.
Things start going wrong almost immediately. Hannah, like all horror-movie children, develops an unholy fascination with something she shouldn’t — in this case, a dumbwaiter that may or may not contain the restless souls of dead kids. Paul and Sarah, ever the sharp parents, decide this is fine.
Then there’s the nanny, Catalina, who casually mentions she thinks the house is haunted. Paul responds by firing her, because nothing says “rational decision-making” like getting rid of the only person who actually knows what’s going on.
Hannah, unsurprisingly, develops a rash that looks like she’s been rolling in liquid metal. Instead of calling a doctor or maybe, I don’t know, a shaman, Paul and Sarah decide to throw in the towel and move back to England. Unfortunately, their escape is thwarted when a storm rolls in and the ghost children literally kidnap Hannah. Because yes — the spectral orphans of this movie’s backstory are apparently organized enough to stage an abduction.
What follows is an incoherent blend of “parents frantically searching” and “ghosts acting out a union grievance.” We eventually learn that the children were victims of mercury poisoning caused by the paper mill, which the family conveniently owns. The ghosts are here for revenge, but like most corporate lawsuits, it takes them decades to get results.
By the time Grandpa Jordan shows up to face his sins, the movie’s pacing has slowed to the speed of continental drift. He gets enveloped by mercury-leaking ghost kids, dies redemptively, and — voilà — Hannah is magically cured. Because apparently “toxic guilt” is an actual antidote now.
Characters: Bland Family Values
Let’s start with Julia Stiles. She’s trying — she really is — but her character, Sarah, is written like an IKEA instruction manual: emotionless, efficient, and confusingly Scandinavian. Her main expressions are “mild concern,” “slightly more concern,” and “oh no, the script.”
Scott Speedman, on the other hand, plays Paul — a man whose primary role seems to be yelling “Sarah!” every five minutes and making bad decisions. He’s got that classic horror-dad energy: protective, skeptical, and perpetually three steps behind the plot.
Little Hannah (Pixie Davies) does what every horror movie kid does — stares blankly at things adults can’t see, draws ominous crayon pictures, and climbs into dangerous furniture. It’s not her fault, of course. She’s just following the genre handbook.
Then there’s Stephen Rea as Jordan, the grandfather and secret corporate villain, who spends most of the film looking like he’s regretting every career choice since The Crying Game. When he finally gets his big moment of guilt-driven redemption, it’s less moving and more “oh, they’re still filming this?”
The rest of the cast, including the fired nanny and the token local villagers, exist purely to deliver exposition and ominous warnings before disappearing forever.
Tone: Supernatural Horror, Corporate Edition
What’s most baffling about Out of the Dark is its tone. It wants to be a supernatural thriller with emotional heft — think The Others meets Erin Brockovich. Instead, it lands somewhere between Scooby-Doo Goes to Colombia and an environmental ethics lecture.
There’s a bizarre disconnect between the film’s attempts at emotional drama and its Scooby-level plotting. Every time a ghost child appears, it’s less “terror” and more “mild inconvenience.” One even shows up to tug on someone’s sleeve like it’s lost at the mall.
And the mercury poisoning angle — theoretically an interesting twist — is treated like an afterthought. The movie keeps hinting at deep social commentary about colonialism, capitalism, and corporate cover-ups, but then forgets and just zooms in on Julia Stiles looking confused in a thunderstorm.
Visuals: A Travel Brochure for Doom
Credit where it’s due — the Colombian countryside looks gorgeous. Unfortunately, it’s also the most interesting character in the movie. The lush jungle, the misty hills, the eerie old finca — it’s all beautifully shot and completely wasted.
Director Lluís Quílez clearly knows how to compose a scene, but the problem is that nothing happens in those scenes. You can only watch so many slow pans of a creepy hallway before you start wondering if the camera itself is haunted by ennui.
Even the ghosts — supposedly the film’s main draw — look like they were designed by someone who’s only ever seen horror movies through frosted glass. The bandaged children are spooky for about ten seconds, until you realize they mostly just shuffle around like they’re lost on Halloween.
And then there’s the mercury. Oh, the mercury. It’s meant to be terrifying — this silvery poison seeping from the children’s wounds — but it ends up looking like someone spilled a bottle of cheap glitter glue. The movie treats it with the same gravitas one might give a bad case of eczema.
Pacing: A Horror Film in Reverse
At 92 minutes, Out of the Dark somehow feels twice as long. The first act crawls, the middle act stalls, and the finale arrives so abruptly you’ll wonder if you fell asleep and missed the good part (spoiler: you didn’t).
There’s no real sense of escalation. The movie meanders from one half-hearted scare to another, sprinkling in family drama and environmental guilt like seasoning from an empty shaker. By the time the third act tries to tie everything together, you’re too emotionally checked out to care who poisoned who or why the ghosts haven’t unionized yet.
The Horror: Ghosts Who Need HR
For a supernatural thriller, Out of the Dark is startlingly devoid of actual scares. Doors creak, lights flicker, and the dumbwaiter opens ominously about seven times. The movie clearly wants to build atmosphere, but what it builds instead is a deep craving for caffeine.
Even when the ghost kids finally go full horror mode, it’s underwhelming. They appear, whisper, maybe drip some mercury, and vanish again. It’s like being haunted by mildly annoyed librarians.
Final Thoughts: Out of the Dark, Into the Dull
Out of the Dark is one of those movies that’s so earnest it forgets to be entertaining. It has all the ingredients for a solid ghost story — guilt, family secrets, creepy kids — but no idea how to use them.
Julia Stiles does her best to keep things afloat, but even she can’t out-act the vacuum of tension. The film’s “twist” — corporate greed causes child ghosts — sounds compelling in theory but lands like a PowerPoint presentation titled Why We Don’t Dump Mercury in Rivers.
Final Verdict:
⭐️½ out of 5.
A ghost story so lifeless even the spirits seem bored. “Out of the Dark”? More like “Out of Ideas.” The only haunting here is the feeling that you could’ve spent those 90 minutes watching paint dry — and it would’ve been scarier.
