The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
While the whole thing is ruthlessly well done, it also sometimes seems to lean into a kind of moral relativism.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
New Zealand · 2021
1h 33m
Director James Ashcroft
Starring Daniel Gillies, Erik Thomson, Miriama McDowell, Matthias Luafutu
Genre Horror, Thriller
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A family's outing descends into terror when a teacher, his wife, and his stepsons explore an isolated coastline. An unexpected meeting with a pair of drifters - the enigmatic psychopath Mandrake and his accomplice Tubs - thrusts the family into a nightmare after the duo kidnaps them and embarks on a road trip to hell.
The New York Times by Glenn Kenny
While the whole thing is ruthlessly well done, it also sometimes seems to lean into a kind of moral relativism.
RogerEbert.com by Matt Zoller Seitz
Coming Home in the Dark settles into the memory as a mesmerizing missed opportunity at worst, a promise of future classics at best.
Los Angeles Times by Noel Murray
The parts of Coming Home in the Dark about confronting guilt aren’t what make the movie so harrowing. Instead, what matters is that Ashcroft and his cast — and especially Gillies as the menacing and charismatic Mandrake — excel at drawing out the moment-to-moment tension of a crime in progress.
Austin Chronicle by Richard Whittaker
It's Gillies' performance that raises Coming Home in the Dark from fascinating to utterly chilling, complimenting Matt Henley's cold, angular cinematography and John Gibson's score, all reed instruments and long, clean draws over strings, like an icy wind blowing slow through dead grass and bones.
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