And Soon the Darkness (1971)

Waste of time

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

hyped garbage

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This really is a good, well made, thrilling horror-mystery. This has all the makings for a worth-while horror film: We have two women touring on their bicycles in France (which they know little about the area they are in), a weird police officer, a strange detective, secluded wooded area, chases and a mystery of a dead friend - whodunit or is she still alive? Well worth you time to watch this movie if what I have described to you sounds appealing, intriguing and you like the older suspenseful horror-thrillers as well as a mystery to solve. There is a twist ending that may not come as a big shock to you but the way it happens might surprise you just a bit.English is the main language of the film but some French is spoken - that's not a problem for the English-only speaking crowd - you'll know what is going on without subtitles.If you can find a copy of this film... I highly recommend it for viewing.9/10

Two young English girls Jane and Cathy enjoy a cycling trip across France . Stopping at a secluded spot the two girls get in to an argument leading Jane to leave Cathy alone . After hearing from the manageress of a nearby café that the road is dangerous Jane returns only to find Cathy has disappeared This is one of these movies that you remember seeing years ago for the very first time thinking it's a great movie only to be disappointed after seeing it again . The obvious reason for this is because it builds up an air of mystery as to what's happened to Cathy then when it is revealed you're left thinking who the bad guy behind it is . Co-written by Brian Clemens who turned THE AVENGERS from straight laced thriller in to psychedelic insanity and Terry Nation who gave the Universe Daleks , Davros and BLAKES 7 you might expect the story to have a bit more flourish or excitement but this isn't the thinking behind it and does work very well because of thisLet me explain this by stating there's no monsters in the Universe apart from the very human ones that inhabit this planet . It would be all too easy for the production team to put a lot of action and excitement in to but everything plays out in a very realistic manner . Cathy finding herself alone in a lonely secluded spot and knowing there is an unseen and mortal menace a few feet away in the bushes is more chilling than most films featuring werewolves or alien spaceships and it's this melding of menace and the mundane that makes this movie stick in the memoryAnother interesting point is that Jane can speak some French but it's the kind of phrasebook French that is required for ordering a drink in the café but not enough to hold abstract conversations such as " Excuse miss but this stretch of road is full of dangers and it's a very bad idea if your friend is sunbathing and she's drying her underwear on a bush " and it makes a nice change that people suddenly don't speak English because of plot contrivances . Interesting too that you can't accuse the film of Little Englander xenophobia since apart from Jane and Cathy the only other English character is a schoolmistress who comes across as a blatant lesbian who is every bit as creepy as the French male characters One rather distasteful point about the film that might make it rather dated is that the two English girls are very skimply dressed . Of course this might not mean anything at all but one wonders how many men would misinterpreted this as meaning " they're up for it " and it's not a film you would recommend to feminists , not unless you're reinforcing the opinion that all men are rapists and there doesn't seem to be any irony to the sexually provocative - unconscious or otherwise - mannerism of the two young women Despite this flaw AND SOON THE DARKNESS is a tense and exciting mystery thriller made on the cheap but made so well it's very compelling first time you see it . The downside to all this is that it's a film that's only produced to be seen once by the audience . But how many expensive Hollywood blockbusters have you seen that don't even deserve to be seen once ?

2 girls go on a cycling holiday to France. When one of them goes missing, it's up to the other one to try to find out what is going on and try to save her friend.The set up of this was pretty slow but it built up the atmosphere and tension really well. It is set in the French countryside and the sunshine is relentless, which was a nice change from horror movies being shot in a lot of darkness. A lot of the time people are speaking French and the protagonist doesn't understand the language, as there are no subtitles the audience doesn't either, which I thought was clever. While the ending was not unexpected, the amount of suspects did keep me guessing for a while and the film kept the tension building the whole way through. Pamela Franklin did a good job carrying the film mostly on her shoulders, and overall I think it was a very good, tense little thriller. It wasn't particularly scary, so don't see it if you're wanting a good fright, but as a thriller it was pretty good.

This is a sort of thriller that reminds us much of "Charade". Charade came first, so it gets the bragging rights.And I don't think it is a spoiler to say that, except to those who saw "Charade", and like me, they will pretty well know what is going on all the time. A\ It starts very very slow. The first 20 minutes is absolutely nothing, but at least the scenery is good. We get to see leggy women and nice country side. Had this been made in a city, and the women wore slacks, you would have fallen asleep long before the twenty minute mark.We begin in an outdoor cafe, and one woman is taking a picture. We know the camera and film will be an important cog, but it could also be a red herring.From there, the suspense is very well done. In 1970, this was not as easy to predict as today. Being easy to predict doesn't make it bad, though, not when the story line follows logic. Any other sort of outcome would have been "illogical" considering the clues. I am already risking the spoiler here, so I won't elaborate. Suffice to say, it is well thought out, well written, well done all around. I would have liked to seen a bit more energy in the first twenty minutes. The country side wasn't that pretty. Good film, and actually very believable for this genre.