In Search of Darkness

MOVIE #1,162 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 09.26.23 This immense (4.5 hours long) and informative and strictly boilerplate documentary on 80s horror is the kind of thing I just eat up. Much like the comprehensive and nearly as long doc on the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise I reviewed last year, it’s the type of movie which definitely feels more like some episodic series you might have found on television once upon a time. Going year by year, examining about 6-7 titles per year (mostly infamous and notable entries, like the various big I.P. sequels of the Friday the 13th, Halloween and Nightmare sagas, but also some lesser known stuff sprinkled in) with interludes focusing on specific topics (like horror fandom, music and sound design, the “final girl” trope, etc.), In Search of Darkness isn’t something you’d watch in one sitting even though it’s presented as such. (They’ve actually produced two sequels that are equally as massive somehow, which I plan on watching eventually.)

Some of the talking heads are much better than the others (like Alex Winter and the late Larry Cohen, whom the film is dedicated to). And a few are downright insufferable (there is a podcast host who talks like he’s reading off cue cards). It might be light on “big” names but they make up for it by giving the ones they did snag (like Joe Dante and John Carpenter) ample screen time. It works as both a primer for the era/genre and something hardcore fans can still enjoy, nostalgically or otherwise.

---

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,161 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,163 ⫸

---

In Search of Darkness is a 2019 documentary film written and directed by David A. Weiner and executive produced by Robin Block of CreatorVC Studios. An international co-production of the United Kingdom and the United States, the film explores the development and lasting impact of the horror film genre during the 1980s, and features interviews with numerous horror icons both from that decade and from the modern era, along with popular horror influencers. It was released on October 6, 2019.