Coming on July 11: IN DARKNESS WE FALL (La Cueva)
Formentera; white-sand beaches, the crystal clear Mediterranean sea, unspoilt natural beauty and five friends looking forward to the holiday of their lives in this idyllic location.
On their second day on the island, the friends discover a hidden cave nestled into the side of a cliff and decide to go in and explore it. Filled with excitement and adrenalin, the friends start to make their way through the countless passageways that make up the cave.
Before long, they realise they are lost. They try for hours to find the way back to the surface, eventually they decide to spend the night inside the cave and start searching again the next day, once they’ve had some rest. But days go by and they are unable to find their way out.
Panic is starting to set in. They have no way of communicating with the outside world and no food or water… and the lack of light is tormenting them towards dementia. With hope quickly fading away, the friends will be forced to make a decision they never thought themselves capable of.
Director Notes (Alfredo Montero)
“In Darkness We Fall” is a thriller about survival in the most extreme circumstances. No aliens, no overly exaggerated sound effects or camera tricks. This is a zombie movie with no zombies.
My aim was to show sharp contrasts in this film; a story which starts out in the light and colourful ambience of a summer holiday on an idyllic island but soon gives way to a hellish scenario of darkness and silence within a labyrinthine cave.
The idea was to tell a simple and realistic tale of a situation that anyone could find themselves in. There are no good guys and bad guys, just normal people who are driven to extreme measures due to severe dehydration, disorientation and the darkness in which they find themselves. Only when faced with impending death are our most wild and primal instincts drawn out of us.
In order for the film to work I needed my cast to give the performances of their lives. We rehearsed over and over again inside the cave and worked really hard to make the dialogues seem natural. Even the camera movements needed to be organic. I didn’t want the viewers to feel as if they were watching a play. I wanted them to get so caught up in the story that they forget that they’re sitting in a cinema watching a movie – I wanted them to really feel involved and to experience the same terror as the characters.
The shooting conditions inside the cave were also extreme! Mile-long, labyrinthine galleries, total darkness, humidity, mud, stalactites and stalagmites sticking into both the cast and crew! Definitely a lesson in tolerance!
I’ll never be able to fully express my gratitude for all the hard work put in by the cast and crew, some of whom had to take medication in order to get over the anxiety they suffered during the 12 hours a day we were filming underground, not to mention the hundreds of bumps, bruises and scars that they will carry with them forever. I am forever indebted to them.
As well as the main actors, I consider the cave and the camera itself to be important characters in the story. I wanted to try and evolve the found-footage subgenre so that the camera becomes less of an eye-witness account. I didn’t want to use the camera as a simple story-telling tool but rather turn it into another element of the character’s survival.
As far as I’m concerned, “In Darkness We Fall” is a horror film because what happens to the characters is simply horrifying. I hope the audience sees it the same way and that this film will have them running screaming from the stalls!
