Devilish darkness doesn’t fully deliver
Excellent turns from leading pair
Opening with the aftermath of a grisly crime scene, From Black promises much but doesn’t quite fully deliver.
Anna Camp stars as recovering drug addict Cora who, desperate for closure and saddled by crushing guilt after the disappearance of her young son, is presented with a bizarre offer to learn the truth about what happened – and set things right.
With the focus on guilt, grief and the devastating loss of a child, From Black is in similar territory to Pet Sematary and Wake Wood.
In only his second feature-length flick, director Thomas Marchese certainly is a dab hand at building menace and utilising small, tight locations to trap his leading characters in inescapable environments.
The script, co-written by Marchese and Jessub Flower, is basic stuff with the focus very much on Camp and her internal and external battles.
The former True Blood star does a grand job as a woman at her lowest ebb and the physical transformations she undergoes put her body through the wringer.
John Ales (Abel) is terrific too as the leader of a recovery group with problems of his own but others, such as Jennifer Lafleur (Cora’s cop sister Bray), contribute little other than advancing certain story elements.
The film is at its finest during the scenes featuring Camp and Ales dabbling in forces they should really have stayed clear of and the raw emotion between the pair is more affecting than the jump scares.
There are several moments we’ve seen done to death in horror, though, like levitating bodies and voices transforming into growling monstrosities.
Marchese and Flower make use of flashbacks which removes some of the tension as we have a fair idea of where everything is headed.
Mixing grief, witchcraft, demonic entities and excellent acting from Camp and Ales, From Black is frustratingly close to hitting the standards of the likes of The Black Phone. A little more care with its script and editing would’ve nailed a delightfully devilish trip into the darkness.
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