August 8, 3:00PMFinsbury Park Picturehouse
dir. Clifton Holmes
USA, 2000, 106 mins
August 7, 8:30PM
Finsbury Park Picturehouse
Librarian Jane's mundane routine is interrupted when she discovers a note from the unseen and unheard "Master of Games", daring her to complete increasingly dangerous challenges in exchange for money. Dismissing the first note as a prank, she soon finds herself pulled deeper into a perverse game where every task pushes her further beyond her moral limits. As the cash rewards grow, so too does the danger.
Released in 2000 following its premiere at the Chicago International Film Festival, Clifton Holmes' In the Dark arrived in the wake of The Blair Witch Project, yet quietly slipped into obscurity. Adapted from the Richard Laymon novel of the same name, one of the defining figures in the SplatterPunk Movement, the film received neither a VHS nor DVD release and appears to have never been officially copyrighted, leaving it to exist largely as a whisper among horror fans. Over two decades later, through online communities, podcasts and dedicated horror archivists, Holmes' unsettling descent into MiniDV hell has finally emerged as a lost cult artefact. One of the earliest examples of digital horror to fully embrace the uncanny texture of consumer video, it feels startlingly modern. Both a deeply uncomfortable study of coercion and a prescient portrait of financial desperation, it anticipates many of the anxieties that would later define the post-financial crash gig economy. Perhaps audiences weren’t quite ready for it. A beautifully crafted lo-fi spectacle, this is a rare opportunity to experience one of horror's most elusive hidden gems on the big screen. Its rough low-budget nature is precisely why it’s so haunting.
This screening be preceded by an intro with Ned Caderni.
Curated by Ned Caderni.
starring —
