I watched Shudder’s new original film From Black, and I am still trying to process what I saw. The fact of the matter is that it was hard to follow. Every time I thought I had a grasp of what was going on, I was left even more lost. My main critique with horror recently seems to always come back to how solid or not the script is, and this one is aggressively soft serve.  

 

Anna Camp plays Cora who is grieving the loss of her son. She finds herself in the custody of police who are trying to figure out why she was involved in something grueling and satanic. As a struggling drug addict, the authorities have a hard time believing her when she explains that she tried to bring her dead son back to life after a man she knows did so with his deceased daughter through spell craft. The film flips back and forth between the timelines. 

 

I’ve been a fan of Anna Camp since her Barden Bella days in Pitch Perfect. I think the choice of a role like this was just what she needed to showcase the range of her onscreen abilities, especially since she is really good here. However, because of the direction, the movie itself felt more like a string of reenactments on an episode of Unsolved Mysteries than a movie. This is a story about a woman desperate in her trauma on paper, yet it barely scratched that surface. 

 

Another standout aspect was the score. From the first second the film begins the music is bold and startling. What sounds like they’re setting up for a jump scare flick is not what we get, making the whole thing feel tone-confused. It was distracting and at times drowned the scene when it really didn’t need to. 

 

To put it bluntly, it’s about a woman who makes a loose deal with the devil to resurrect someone, which does not pan out in her favor. It’s basic, but it does the job, and it’s dark. If that’s the kind of ride you roll with, then voila! There’s your next Saturday night flick to watch as you hide under a blanket in your house with all the lights off. Happy streaming!