The Darkness of the Road: Every Parent’s Worse Nightmare

When I was a kid, my father left me at a gas station. I remember my eyes filling with tears as I watched helplessly as my Father’s car speed off into the distance. I was sad, confused, and too young to understand the emotions of what was happening. The gas station clerk came out and asked me what was happening before running back in to call the police. A couple of minutes later, my Dad pulled back in. He had thought I was in the car. It wasn’t malicious, it was a simple misunderstanding. This little story has lived on in my family for decades. We never let my Dad live it down. I’ve always recounted this story from my perspective, emphasizing the fear I felt as a child. But now, 25 years later, I have my own kids and the fear of losing them is a constant throb in the back of my mind. The brief five seconds at the playground when you look up and can’t find your toddler. Or you are out walking and he runs ahead and turns a corner. Now when I think back to when my Dad left me at that gas station, I wonder what mixture of fear and adrenaline did he feel when he looked in the back seat and I wasn’t there? It’s 11 o’clock, do you know where your children are?

Director Edward Rodriguez takes those five to ten seconds of terror that it takes you to scan the playground looking for your child and turns it into a 90 minute fever dream about every parent’s worse fear. The Darkness of the Road follows Siri (Najarra Townsend from The Stylist fame) and her daughter Eve (Gwyneth Glover) as they travel down a lonesome, desert highway to start a new life in California. Along the way, Siri stops at a gas station to pick up some supplies where she has a run in with the clerk who takes a bit too much interest in her relationship status. While leaving, Siri meets Iris (Leah Lauren) who asks for a ride. Siri takes some convincing but eventually invites Iris to join her and her daughter. Shortly after leaving the gas station, a creature runs in front of the car, causing Siri to swerve to a stop and stalling out the car. The car will not restart and this is when Siri and Iris realize that Eve is not in the backseat.

Straddling the line between creature feature and psychological thriller, The Darkness of the Road is a fascinating, creepy thrill ride that will keep you guessing as to what is really happening and who is really being honest with who they are. Rodriguez does an excellent job moving the story along and teasing his hand without showing too much. The film reminds me of Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance or Brad Anderson’s Session 9. While you might come for the monsters roaming the empty desert landscape, you’ll stay to find out what the hell is going on in the nightmare.

Najarra Townsend is excellent as a mother who is all out of options, stuck inside a car, running short on time and patience. Leah Lauren and Gwyneth Glover also hold their own but by far the best part of the film is the cinematography. John De Fazio enchants the bleak desert highway with fantastic portraits that set the tone and atmosphere. Living up to its title, the road is truly wrapped in darkness, with no stars, no moon, and no cars passing by casting shadows onto our protagonists. De Fazio uses this darkness to visually isolate our cast and create a sense of danger relentlessly pressing down on the three.

At first, I was a little underwhelmed by the creature special effects. Initially they reminded me of a lower budget quality you might see on a ghost reenactment television show. But my view began to change as the movie went on. Rodriguez finds the sweet spot of showing just enough of the creatures and the longer I looked at them, the more I found them scary. But it’s not just the creatures that emanate horror in the film. A movie about a broke down car surrounded by monsters could get old, Rodriguez keeps it interesting through use of blood, gore, and the abject. A particular scene involving a car full of razorblades made me physically cringe. Not to mention the visuals toward the end full of hellish agony that more than makes up for any perceived shortcomings of the monsters’ design.

When my Dad left me at that gas station, he was gone for three, maybe four minutes, yet I still remember the horror it brought me 25 years later. When I lose sight of my son at the park, I can usually find him in the matter of seconds, but the terror I feel is still palpable. The Darkness of the Road takes the horror that every parent knows and brings it to a head. What if your child was in danger and there was nothing you could do to help them? What would you do? How could you go on?

The Darkness of the Road is set to release on DVD and Digital on December 14th.