‘From Black’ Review – Satisfactory Scares Save Scarce Story

For a supernatural horror movie in 2023 to also be slow, methodical, and often even gritty, is a real blessing. Jump scares are few and far between, and the realistic nature of the visuals ensure that From Black will, at the very least, encourage you to leave the hall light on for a night or two.

Starring the experienced (and appropriately corny) Anna Camp, this grounded horror thriller may go down as the most misunderstood of the year, even if it isn’t groundbreaking. It currently holds an abysmal 30% critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the majority of critics condemning it’s slow pace and bare-bones story, as well as somehow knocking it for having what may end up being the best horror score of the year at the forefront. On the contrary, From Black is refreshingly careful, taking the time to flesh out its concepts and yet still ensuring that you never have the time to breathe. Slow and scary wins the race.

The film does unfortunately suffer in how it presents some of those concepts visually though, as well as how the overall story, which is thin as is, is executed. Director Thomas Marchese clearly has a specific vision for this, but it seems like it may have been lost in translation, at least to a certain extent. Many important sequences on paper look and feel watered down, with a big-budget monster and radical spiritual concepts clashing against listless fields and empty rooms. The set almost always feels too unimportant for the matter within it. But it is worth noting that in one specific scene, in a vision of sorts, this simplistic, broad-daylight approach lends itself to the moment incredibly well and makes for one of the best horror scenes of the year so far. It isn’t really a scare, just deeply unsettling.

I also mentioned the big-budget monster, which is a mild highlight. From Black’s demon antagonist looks downright gnarly, and even if the camera work, and especially the lighting, doesn’t always work to build him up as they should, his impact on the film cannot be understated still. He moves slowly in tandem with the narrative, dragging out all of the scenes in which he is featured, inevitably burning his image into the minds of viewers. It isn’t something that hasn’t been done before in regards to design, but it still works exceptionally well here, and clearly wasn’t a simple copy-paste of other demonic movie villains. But the problem that lies in the lighting and camera work bleeds through those scenes and into the rest of the film, creating what is probably the biggest issue at hand here.

This film just doesn’t look that great. The colors are washed out, and while the story benefits from a slow pace, the equally sedated camera work makes for a relatively boring watch at times. There are so many sequences that would have benefited from deeper lighting, from a more piercing look. This goes back to that aforementioned listless overall look that sets this thing back a serious few notches. Perhaps it was a budget issue, as some of the visual effects, especially the particle-based bits, look rough too. But again, these things probably could’ve been compensated for by more style on the visual front. It doesn’t kill the film, but it makes it feel like a tale of two halves essentially the entire way through.

It also doesn’t help that, outside of Camp (and even she falls victim sometimes), the performances simply aren’t very strong. They’re often over-dramatic and unconvincingly loud. Nothing ever feels dire to the level at which the performers allude, though it’s difficult to place why that is. Yet despite all that, From Black is still an effectively creepy, contained, relatively low-budget horror flick that will be sure to satisfy fans of the genre. Even with the problems, it’ll be easy to get lost in the big moments, and to enjoy the commendable highlights. The film isn’t near as bad as many critics are suggesting, and if you have Shudder, it’s worth 100 minutes of your time.

From Black is currently available to stream on Shudder and AMC+. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOljiTJl4ww]