Dark Nature

Directed by Berkley Brady, Dark Nature follows several women, including Hannah Emily Anderson’s Joy, as they trek into the wilderness in an attempt to confront (and get over) their past trauma. Filmmaker Brady, armed with her and Tim Cairo’s screenplay, delivers a progressively underwhelming and tedious endeavor that gets off to a less-than-promising start, as Dark Nature opens with a curiously ineffective sequence that (very poorly) establishes the abusive relationship between Joy and her dog-killing boyfriend (Daniel Arnold’s Derek) – with the picture, beyond that point, seguing into a meandering midsection focused on the tiresome exploits of uniformly bland and generic characters. It’s clear, as well, that Dark Nature‘s arms-length atmosphere is perpetuated by its emphasis on eye-rollingly hackneyed is-the-threat-real-or-is-it-just-in-Joy’s-head shenanigans, and there’s little doubt, as a result, that it’s virtually impossible to work up an ounce of interest once the deadly threat finally does make its appearance. (The late-in-the-game turn towards science-fiction is puzzling, to say the least.) By the time the deeply unsatisfying finale rolls around, with Brady’s efforts at linking the surviving characters’ trauma and their real-life antagonist falling hopelessly flat, Dark Nature has undoubtedly cemented its place as a completely misguided endeavor that might’ve fared better as a short film (but even that seems unlikely).

* out of ****