I have so many films on my Netflix queue at this point, I'll never get to all of them, and their availability via streaming comes and goes. I've been a member for almost a decade now, so there's some old stuff on that list. I also browse Neftlix for fun and add new ones every chance I get, so, frankly, I don't really know what's on there. So I decided to give Robert Fuest's cheeky little thriller And Soon the Darkness (1970) a look, since I had no idea what the film was about and couldn't remember why I added it to the queue. I actually thought it was one of those films where animals attack people out of the blue. Wrong.
Robert Fuest's name rang some bells, and on further investigation, I found out that he's directed some of my favorite things!
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| The Avengers |
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| The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) |
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| Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) |
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| The Last Days of Man on Earth or The Final Programme (1973) |
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| The Devil's Rain (1975) |
According to the Church of Satan Archives, John Travolta plays a hooded acolyte at one point. A slippery slope to Scientology indeed. I've got to see this film now.
Anyway, back to Fuest's And Soon the Darkness (1970). The film opens with Jane (Pamela Franklin) and Cathy (Michele Dotrice) on a leisurely bike vacation through the French countryside. As is the case with some friends, sometimes friends shouldn't go on vacation together; these two women envision their trip differently. Jane is a no-nonsense type who wants to spend her vacation seeing as much of France as possible. Cathy, the blond strumpet, wants to lounge around cafes making eyes at French guys. Well, she actually just wants to relax a bit more, but she spends all of her time whining about how bored she is. So, I wanted her to die fairly quickly into the film.
She makes eyes at this guy, who's a pretty well-dressed bloke for the middle of nowhere. He drives around on a scooter in a threatening and suspicious manner, which makes him irresistibly hot to Cathy. Jane's like the honey badger--she doesn't give a s*** about the dude in the shades. She just wants to see France!
The two young women, decide to take a break, but when Jane wants to get on the road again, Cathy balks, calling Jane mean names and insisting on sunbathing. In frustration, Jane leaves Cathy there to bike onward, eventually stopping and waiting for her in a cafe up the road.
Crosscutting brings us back to Cathy, who has been hanging her undies up to dry. Things take a turn when she realizes her panties are missing.
And her bike has been sabotaged. Bam, she's snatched. Unsurprisingly, when Jane pedals back to find Cathy, she's no longer there, and her bike is gone.
Sinister French moped guy comes along, and says that he'd like to help her. Jane rightly doesn't trust him, since he's spent the last half hour of the film staring at her and her friend, and following them around. Go figure.
Jane's problem is that she doesn't know French, and cannot understand what anyone's saying. Jane's paranoia, coupled with her lack of language skills, makes everyone in the film a potential suspect in Cathy's disappearance. One clear suspect is creepy French guy Paul, who claims that he works for the Surete (Paris's Scotland Yard), and was on the case when a young blond woman was murdered three years ago.
Then there's this creepy farmer guy: equal parts abusive, unhelpful, and suspicious.
The ominous British Schoolmistress who gives Jane a ride to the cops, keeps remarking on how pretty she is, and then goes a little crazy talking about "sex" and that some girls are asking for trouble.
And the cops cannot really be trusted either.
The head gendarme takes care of his Dad, who likes to wear women's panties on his head and carries a scythe. Yep.
I figured out what was going on early in And Soon, so many of the cat-and-mouse chase scenes between Jane and the other characters felt a little tedious. If one is looking for gore here, look elsewhere. This film is all subtlety and exchanged glances, which I prefer anyway.
I couldn't help thinking of a dozen French films from the last decade that make the spectator rightfully suspicious of the local townspeople. Calvaire (2004), Ils (2006), Sheitan (2006), Frontier(s) (2007), and a British version with Eden Lake (2008). In all these films, outsiders trespass into a space where the locals police their boundaries, and nefarious things happen behind closed doors (or out in nature, depending).
And Soon is a precursor to many of these films, reminding young women everywhere that all men (and some women) are threatening sexual predators, and that it's not safe for women to travel. This narrative has not disappeared, as films like those of the Hostel series prove; they've just upped the gore to eleven. Oh, and Hollywood made an utterly pointless remake of And Soon the Darkness in 2010 directed by Marcus Efron. I don't think I can make myself watch that. This time it's hot girls in bikinis going to Argentina. Sigh.
