The Other Side of Darkness

I’ve been involved in a dozen feature films; one got picked up by a US indie distributor, sold a few copies on physical media and was promptly forgotten- I learned from a friend years later that without any publicity or exposure, the movie picked up a million views on YouTube alone. Something similar seems to have happened to Adam Deierling’s family adventure film The Other Side of Darkness which has racked up an impressive two and a half million views in less than a year; it’s safe to say that most of this year’s Oscar nominees fell far short of that kind of popular benchmark, and maybe we need to redraw our idea of what a modern sleeper success is; movies you’ve never heard of seem to be more watched than the ones you never stop hearing about.

Shot in Ohio and West Virginia, the story is about teenager Taylor Jo (Maggie Callahan) or TJ to her friends. At 16, she files for emancipation from her sleaze-ball guardian, but tracing her birth family leads her to head off with her brother Patrick (Drake Tobias) and friend Hannah (Olivia Billings) in a Jeep Wrangler that her mother left her. But when she connects with her grandfather (Scott C Davis), TJ intuitively knows that something isn’t right, and she’s correct; could the family secret have something to do with the sudden electrical blackouts that seem to be bringing America to its knees on a state by state basis?

While it’s the lot of a film-critic to be amazed at how well crafted a low-budget movie can be, The Other Side of Darkness is pretty astonishing in terms of production values and acting for its $15,000 budget; the images are sharp and clear, and it’s a very professionally made film. And while the slowly developed narrative might put some viewers off, it’s really worth sticking with Deieirling and co; it’s a good hour of well-wrought family drama before we really get a clue what’s going on, and it’s not the sci-fi, horror, fantasy goofiness that we expect from low budget features. Instead, spoiler alert, we discover that one of the central characters has been radicalised by an anarchist group with unspecified grievances, and that gradual build up of credibility helps realise a serious plotline that reflects anxieties about the direction of extremism in society in a way that blockbusters rarely do.

A balm for those who seek the wholesome adventure of the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew updated, The Other Side of the Darkness generally steps away from sex, violence or preaching; it’s an old-school adventure story that builds steadily to a stand-off climax, but never gets silly or sentimental. With uniformly strong performances from an unfamiliar cast, The Other Side of Darkness’s fresh, accessible mystery narrative could show many Hollywood flicks a thing or two about creating an original story that doesn’t just copy other films, but makes it look easy to entertain.