How Dark They Prey
It’s always interesting to see filmmakers who approach a genre as a storytelling engine first, then a technical exercise. In the films of theirs I’ve seen, directors Jamison M. LoCascio and Adam Ambrosio do just that, and even if something like “Sunset” isn’t strictly genre, it’s fundamentally a story about the end of the world, told on the ground level. In their latest film, they are approaching horror in anthology form, and all four films focus on personal experiences and struggles that we can all empathize with, even if the choices made are not the ones we would make.
In the first segment, we see a news broadcaster who’s interested in stories about UFOs, and the unexplained. He has a lead on someone who might be able to offer a unique story to tell, something that could put him on the map, rather than being a joke. Such things are better hoped for than received, however, as he is going to find out. Next up, two American soldiers during WWII are under fire, and when they are come upon by a Nazi soldier, their sense of reality is challenged. The third segment has a young man is walking by a lake, and comes across an old man fishing. The young man is in distress, and the old man is having a hard time catching fish. Together, however, their lives are better, until the knife the young man receives takes hold of his anxieties. Finally, a mother is stopped with her baby in the car by a cop. The stop is fraught with tension, but not as much as when they both find themselves in an empty room after being knocked unconscious.
The title, “How Dark They Prey,” is interesting, and I think representative about the role belief in the unnatural plays in each story. Normally, one would say supernatural, but we’re not just talking about demons and spirits- each story has an element that cannot be easily explained, whether it’s an unexpected revelation, a show of strength that wasn’t expected, an otherworldly object, or a bullet missing someone from mere feet away. Each one deals with moments that test the faith of the characters living them. I think some of the stories are stronger as a whole than others- the one at the lake, and the one with the soldiers probably connect the most- but I like how LoCascio and Ambrosio have something to say in each one about human nature, especially how it’s in our nature to want something, but when we get it, we aren’t necessarily prepared for what happens next. Each segment throws us off-guard, which is exactly what good genre fair should do. These two are good at their jobs.
