The IMDB page for Darkness Descends (or 20Ft Below: Darkness Descending which makes less sense as a title) contains a summary that is worth considering: Below the streets of New York is a dark and dangerous world hidden in the shadows of abandoned subway tunnels and miles of forgotten infrastructure. There are many misleading elements to this pithy one-liner so here is a clearer, more accurate, if longer version.
Chelsea (Kinga Phillips who also co-produced the film) is a journalist wandering the tunnels underneath New York looking for a story armed only with a vest top and a small camcorder that would appear to have infinite battery life. After meeting many strange and eccentric people who have a curious sense of community she discovers the mythical Angel (Danny Trejo who just cannot say no!) who operates as a literal underground crime lord, apparently untouchable by the police and who with a handful of cohorts runs the shadowy passages through fear and intimidation, although his motives remain a mystery. Chelsea then encounters Jake (Frank Krueger who also wrote the screenplay). Jake is an ex-cop who has made his home in the tunnels and might just be the one man who can stop Angel. He is also mourning the death of his wife who was brutally killed by Angel not too long ago but this doesn’t dissuade the hungry Chelsea from inappropriately making advances.
It would seem prudent to stop there to avoid spoilers if only there actually were any. Darkness Descends is about as vacant and hollow as it is possible for a feature film to be. Virtually nothing happens throughout the running time and when there is some action it is so plodding and uninteresting as to provide little distraction to the grim monotony. The performances are bland and unconvincing across the board with the exception of Trejo who has mastered the brooding bad guy role but really is just phoning it in here. The direction needed to be strong and inventive in Darkness Descends but Marc Clebanoff has failed to disguise the repetitive use of the same sets from different angles and instead of giving the impression of a sprawling underground world with danger around every corner the whole things feels very sterile and claustrophobic. It doesn’t seem to take very long at all for people to find each other in the darkness and you are left with the question of why did no-one deal with Angel sooner? Everyone knows where he is, everyone knows who he is, and as he has a particularly small band of useless heavies he actually seems to offer very little threat.
OVERALL SUMMARY
Darkness Descends comes with a tag line of ‘Based On Real Events’. It can only be concluded that those events were so sleep-inducingly boring as to have never before inspired a film-maker and hopefully never will again. It is fairly depressing to come across a film with little if any redeeming features but sadly this is one of those times.
