Keene McRae’s debut feature, Shot in the Dark, has a lot going for it. It seems like a blend of nineties serial-killer drama (for you young-uns, in the wake of The Silence of the Lambs Hollywood spent a decade REALLY focused on sadistic serial killers – Kiss the Girls, Copycat, Seven, The Bone Collector, Eye of the Beholder, etc. – with a whole lotta scenes showing the killer at work) mixed with an early-oughts indie drama.
William Langston (co-writer Kristoffer McMillan) is an author whose life fell apart two years ago. Suicidal after the tragedy that changed everything, he moves back to his hometown, hoping to find meaning, purpose, and peace in familiar surroundings with his family and friends, just as a serial killer known as “The Mailman Killer” is stalking the town and seems to have Langston in his sights.
The film is not told in a linear style, but jumps back and forth in time, from the happier times, before, when Langston met his girlfriend, later wife, Lili (Christine Donlon). We see their relationship play out through time, we see Langston cope with loss and grief, and we see a lot of the killer getting to work. There is, as a result, an odd disconnect in this film between the emotional depth we seem intended to feel for Langston and the sheer amount of gore and violence in the killer scenes.
In the past decade horror has moved beyond merely exploring the violence of killers and we have seen in this time a genuine exploration of grief and loss in everything from Hereditary to The Vigil, films that wonderfully used horror to explore the process (and horror) of going through traumatic loss. Other films like The Curse of La Llorona had the potential to explore, and completely missed the mark. Shot in the Dark often succeeds, despite the occasionally clunky dialogue or questionable character moment, and succeeds because of the strength of performers McMillan and Donlon, who full invest the characters with emotional lives and a believable relationship.
The nonlinear narrative means the audience does not get the full picture (pardon the pun) until the end, in which the ironic working out of both plotlines (Langston’s grief and the serial killer) are resolved together. If this reviewer is allowed one snark, it would be that “shot in the dark” is also a description of several scenes in this film that would have benefited from just a bit more illumination. Having said that, the film is often well shot and the cinematography lends itself to the story being told.
For a thriller it is not always gripping, but Shot in the Dark is an interesting and well made film whose makers show promise. I look forward to their sophomore effort. Were this a studio film, the ending leaves room for a sequel. Because this is an indie, I hope that temptation is avoided. This films lives well by itself, and frankly, the killer is not nearly as interesting at the lives he threatens. How often can you say that about a horror film?
8 out of 10
