Let’s be honest here. I watched this movie for the title. Darkness is one of my favorite words. I saw this movie on Starz the other day when I was clicking through channels, and I DVRed it, knowing it would be right up my alley. I watched it today because I wanted a break from Lifetime and Melrose Place, and it was the first movie at the top of my DVR list that fit the bill.

And Soon the Darkness is a remake of a 1970s British thriller of the same name, which I have not seen and may or may not add to my list. Two women are cycling through Argentina. When one of them goes missing, the other one is left to find her. It’s pretty obvious early on that it’s 1) dangerous for women to be in a foreign country, 2) dangerous for women to be alone in a foreign country, 3) strange foreign men are dangerous. We’re just waiting for one woman to be alone so a man can abduct her. It’s REALLY obvious.

Because it’s so in your face from the beginning of this movie that things in Argentina are dangerous, this movie is definitely lacking in the thrills area. I watched a Lifetime movie yesterday called A Deadly Encounter, and this movie (even with its horrible and unintriguing title!) was more suspenseful. I’m not sure where And Soon the Darkness went wrong. The abduction scene wasn’t scary. The rescue scene wasn’t scary. When characters get killed, I’m not scared. I’m just like… well, that’s what happens when you’re in Argentina. Shouldn’t have gone to Argentina. You should’ve gone to Las Vegas. Nothing bad happens in Las Vegas.

It’s so unfortunate that this movie falls flat, because the two main lead actresses are actually pretty good. Amber Heard plays the “good girl”, and I saw her (and enjoyed her performance, if you remember) recently in Drive Angry. Odette Yustman (who is now…Odette Annable? Seriously, actresses should only keep their maiden names or hyphenate married names, because it’s confusing) plays the “bad girl”, and I really liked her in The Unborn, which I saw a few years ago and thought was pretty underrated as a horror film. Both Heard and Yustman/Annable played their roles well separately and together, and they are really believable as best friends. I wanted more of them. I empathized with them. But I still wasn’t scared when bad stuff happened to them.

So, today brought you a lukewarm review. I don’t want my 90 minutes back, but I’m not sure if I’d recommend it. Lesson learned: Titles can be more interesting than movies.