Back in 2006, Courtney Solomon and Allan Zeman founded After
Dark Films, an independent film production and distribution company tailored towards
generating horror films and went on to organize the After Dark Horrorfest otherwise
known as 8 Films to Die For. Each
year, eight horror films would play at the festival followed by a DVD disc
rollout through Lionsgate Films who eventually co-founded After Dark Originals
with them.
Their first ever release came
in the form of The Trilogy of Death director Nacho Cerdà’s 2006 film The
Abandoned which was originally part of the Horrorfest before getting a
standalone theatrical and DVD run a year later.
From an ordinarily controversial director unafraid to transgress into
some deathly dark areas, the international co-production between Bulgaria,
Spain and the United Kingdom after only being on DVD finally makes its blu-ray
disc debut in a new deluxe special edition from boutique label Unearthed
Films. Though not nearly as shocking as
some of the other films in the Unearthed catalog, it will get your attention.
Young Marie Jones (Anastasia Hille) is an American film
producer born in Russia who was adopted as a child when she inherits some small
property and takes it upon herself to return to her native homeland birthplace
to find out her family’s background in the hopes of maybe discovering what
happened to her parents. On a desolate
wooded island, she tracks down a house that is not only in abandoned squalor
but is housing a mysterious drifter named Nikolai (Karel Roden) who claims to
be an estranged twin brother also on the same archaeological familial tree hunt
she is. As they venture further into the
endless darkened corridors of the abandonment, it becomes apparent they’re not alone
and are being stalked by strange zombie-like doppelgangers possibly hinting at
something far more terrible at stake existentially.
Still, Unearthed Films fans will get plenty
of atmosphere punctuated by unexpectedly brutal shocks and their new blu-ray
disc is stacked with extras including alternate takes, unused endings, deleted
scenes and outtakes as well as extras from the 2007 DVD ported over. On its own it doesn’t make a whole lot of
sense but that constant unreliable narrator perspective compounded with the
creepy atmosphere and breakdown of logic and reason makes for a most unsettling
downer with shades of Silent Hill 2 running through its decaying walls.
For additional reading, check out Tasha Danzig's review here!
--Andrew Kotwicki