A real shame honestly. What we have here is a pretty decent idea, a nasty racist politician ressurects an occultism from the 15th century to aid him in passing what (at the time) was heavily draconian legislation…but by modern standards is par of the course seemingly…Only to wind up biting off more than he could chew.

It’s a simple idea with scope to be really effective…and the film looks great with some pretty solid performances to boot!

The problem is this movie is just shy of an hour…and the idea can seemingly only really sustain 25 minutes…meaning at least half the movie feels like padding…and not particularly interesting padding at that.

Not helping matters either, the actual plot beyond that initial pitch gets VERY contrived and confusing fairly quickly making a film that was already a bit of a drag, even harder to stay invested in even as the final minutes drew in.

I ultimately started clock watching by the 35 minute mark, and was checking my phone by 50 minutes…its a shame really, as I think had this been 30 minutes, it’d probably have been at least a star and a half higher for me…ah well, can’t be lucky every time.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/the-face-of-darkness/