A Dark Song (2017) – Review

<p>Oh&comma; how advertising pays off&period; I was surfing around on the internet when I happened to see a trailer for a movie playing in the sidebar of the page I was on&period; The name of the movie caught my attention and I decided to give the trailer a go&period; After watching the trailer for <em>A Dark Song<&sol;em>&comma; I was hooked and had to see the movie&period; Come to find out<em> A Dark Song<&sol;em> is an Irish independent horror that came out April 2017 and it&&num;8217&semi;s Liam Gavin&&num;8217&semi;s directorial debut&period; A Dark Song was released on April 28&comma; 2017&comma; to select theatres and on digital streaming platforms&comma; then on September 5th&comma; 2017&comma; it was released on Blu-ray&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Here&&num;8217&semi;s what you&&num;8217&semi;re getting into with <em>A Dark Song<&sol;em>&period; Sophia&comma; a grieving mother&comma; and Joseph&comma; an occultist&comma; lock themselves up in a house in the countryside of Wales to perform a dangerous ritual to summon Sophia&&num;8217&semi;s guardian angel&period; The ritual is a grueling process that can take months to perform&comma; during which neither of them can leave the house under any circumstances&period; If the ritual is successful&comma; the angel will appear and both Sophia and Joseph will be granted what they want&period; If something goes wrong&comma; all those bumps in the night they&&num;8217&semi;ve been hearing&&num;8230&semi; could be coming for their souls&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129564" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129564" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-129564 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;09&sol;11180346&sol;A-Dark-Song-still-1-1024x638&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"623" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129564" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">A Dark Song&comma; Samson Films<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Writing the description for <em>A Dark Song<&sol;em> was kind of hard&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s so much I wanted to put in there&comma; but I was afraid it would give something away and ruin the story&period; So&comma; I went as bare bones as I could with the description&comma; but the story is so good&period; Writer&sol;director Liam Gavin came up with a complex story that takes place in a very simple setting&period; Now&comma; a few parts of the movie take place outside of the house&comma; but for the most part&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;re locked away in the house with Sophia and Joseph&period; Between personal desire&comma; isolation and the grueling tasks performed during the ritual&comma; Gavin sets two people up to go on a twisted and torturous journey&period; There are so many moments where you find your self-asking is any of this real or is all of it real&quest; Something else that makes Gavin&&num;8217&semi;s story so great&comma; to me&comma; is I kept thinking about the movie after it was over&period; I kept spinning on certain scenes and debating what really happened in that house&period; I love when a movie can make that kind of impact on me because I watch so many movies at a time that most of them tend to blend together at the end of the day&comma; but not this one&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The playthrough was amazing&period; The story starts off a bit slow as everything is being set up&comma; but your interest is peaked as you try to figure out what Sophia is up to&period; Once both characters are inside the house&comma; you&&num;8217&semi;re hooked and questioning everything that&&num;8217&semi;s happening as the story unfolds&period; I can&&num;8217&semi;t say <em>A Dark Song<&sol;em> was scary&comma; but there were plenty of times I was seriously creeped out&period; What made those creeped out moments so good was the subtlety used during those scenes&period; Instead of just throwing a &&num;8220&semi;monster&&num;8221&semi; right in your face like some films&comma; <em>A Dark Song<&sol;em> went with little things happening either in the background and sometimes even straight forward with &&num;8220&semi;Oh&comma; look a monster&&num;8217&semi;s calmly sitting there watching you eat&&num;8221&semi;&period; It was the anticipation during some of those scenes that made the movie scarier than just watching someone being attacked out right&period; The entire movie is a slow burn filled with doubt and curiosity&period; All said and done&comma; <em>A Dark Song<&sol;em> was highly entertaining&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129566" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129566" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-129566 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;09&sol;11180639&sol;A-Dark-Song-still-2-1024x638&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"623" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129566" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">A Dark Song&comma; Samson Films<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Now&comma; the cast line-up is pretty small&comma; to begin with&comma; but most of the movie centers around Catherine Walker &lpar;<em>Dark Touch<&sol;em>&rpar;&comma; Steve Oram &lpar;<em>The World&&num;8217&semi;s End<&sol;em>&rpar; and Nathan Vos&period; There are times when you feel bad for Walker and Oram&&num;8217&semi;s characters and others when you seriously can&&num;8217&semi;t stand either of them&period; Both Walker and Oram did an amazing job with their characters and the chemistry between them was great&period; I can&&num;8217&semi;t imagine anyone trying to pull off this movie without the chemistry they had because the movie would&&num;8217&semi;ve failed&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I thought the special effects looked good and blended into the scenes really well&period; Most of the effects are practical&comma; but there is a bit of CGI here and there&period; Something else that caught my attention was the cinematography by Cathal Watters&period; Watters&&num;8217&semi; steady hand captured some haunting moments that pushed the visuals of the movie to an even higher level&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129565" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129565" style&equals;"width&colon; 1000px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-129565 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;09&sol;11180426&sol;A-Dark-Song-still-3-1024x638&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"1000" height&equals;"623" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129565" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">A Dark Song&comma; Samson Films<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>If you get the Blu-ray version of A Dark Song&comma; here are the bonus features that come with it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Bonus Features<br &sol;>&NewLine;Interviews With Director Liam Gavin&comma; Actors Steve Oram And Catherine Walker&comma; And Director Of Photography Cathal Watters<br &sol;>&NewLine;Deleted Scenes<br &sol;>&NewLine;Storyboards<br &sol;>&NewLine;Theatrical Trailer<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Overall&comma; A Dark Song left a mark and I won&&num;8217&semi;t be forgetting about it anytime soon&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;