This movie is what pure middling horror is made of. The film is actually shot pretty well at points, Brad Anderson does carry over some of his immense talent in early works like Session 9 & The Machinist, with a keen directorial eye for shadow play & framing, but god damn the writing (& acting) is just awful. The idea of people just vanishing in the darkness seems like a good one, but it's handled like any other cookie-cutter dime-a-dozen post-apocalyptic fim out there. Hayden Christensen provides no charisma to his role, and at first, you think he'll skate by on the initial storyline at first, actually I was getting neat little Alan Wake vibes, but once he arrives at the bar, all bets are off. The bar is a really piss-poor setting that does little to service the plot, and though James, the son of the bar's owner, is fine, their interactions together are wooden & just typical stuff that just forces your eyes to close in boredom. The film attempts to tie its narrative in with the mystery of the disappearance of the Roanoke Colony, but in a way that is like someone just heard of it 5-minutes ago and thought "Croatoan" was just a cool, spooky word to use. I really do not recommend this movie even if I like Anderson's direction all things considered. Trust me, you're not missing anything new or unique here.
Well said.
I mostly just really like the concept of ever encroaching darkness that even begins to destroy light sources.