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‘Out of Darkness’ Review: Tense Stone Age Survival Thriller Invents Its Own Language


Starvation, cold and worse threaten a band of prehistoric nomads in Andrew Cumming’s atmospheric U.K. indie debut feature, 'Out of Darkness.'

Belatedly offering non-laughable companionship to Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1981 “Quest for Fire” is “ Out of Darkness,” a lean, mean adventure story on the cusp of horror that firsttime feature director Andrew Cumming imbues with tension and handsome visual atmospherics. Still, Ruth Greenberg’s screenplay takes care to provide them with credible-enough personalities and interpersonal dynamics; we are not in the campy caveman realm of loinclothed Victor Mature or fur-bikini’d Raquel Welch here. On a story level, “Out of Darkness” may be less than memorable, but its simultaneously poetical and perilous atmosphere leaves a strong impression, stirring anticipation for whatever Cumming (whose résumé previously consisted of shorts and TV episodes) will do next.

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