And Soon the Darkness (1971)

This is an eerie little 70's movie, where 2 nurses go on a cycling holiday in France, then cross paths with a strange man, then one of the girls disappear and it's up to the other one to try and find her and finding herself alone and isolated.The scenario is quite frightening where the young girl is all alone in a strange country, and that carefully builds up the atmosphere and where she learns about the local disappearances. All this takes place in the daytime which is rather different as many movies uses the nighttime to create scares and chills. Even the wooded area is very chilling when one of the girls is all alone, you straight away have the feeling that she's being watched and the fact that it doesn't show a glimpse of anyone is in fact like being trapped in a nightmare.But the pacing is rather slow and very talky and the fact that you don't know what any of the villagers are saying does get annoying. I do understand why they did it, too put the viewer in the girl's shoes, but even when she's not in the scene and just them, you still don't know what's going on. But the mystery aspect of this movie is very well crafted with several red herrings and suspects are well handled. and the scenes when she has a run in with the stranger does keep you guessing and guessing until the final climax, which wasn't entirely that satisfying and I kinda guessed the outcome of the friend.The performances were very brilliantly cast, both the young female leads Michele Dotrice and Pamela Franklin were both spot on and Sandor Eles was perfectly convincing as the mysterious stranger.All in all a very good mystery thriller, but don't go expecting anything that thrilling though as it's rather slowly paced, but had great atmoshere and tension.

Jane (Pamela Franklin) and Cathy (Michele Dotrice) are a couple of British nurses taking a bicycle vacation through rural France. When they have an argument, Jane storms off ahead leaving Cathy sunbathing on the grass. Later on Jane returns but can find no trace of Cathy, stuck in a foreign land and unable to speak the language, Jane soon finds herself in grave danger as she searches frantically for her lost friend.The title is about the protagonist trying to resolve a mystery/terror situation before the darkness falls. Film is completely set in daylight time, with a very limited amount of characters, and no extended bouts of dialogue. Looking at it from the outside, you would not be thought of as ignorant for expecting this to not be frightening or thrilling, yet it is both. The isolation of the countryside is a foreboding presence here, which coupled with Jane's isolation as a foreigner, makes for edgy atmospherics.Director Robert Fuest is in no hurry what so ever to start turning the screws, so the first half of pic is very slow, but patience is rewarded once the girls argue and split up. Then Fuest starts introducing peripheral characters, and writers Brian Clemens and Terry Nation dangle bits of dark information into the plot, about the area and its history. The mystery element is amped up high, the perpetrator could quite easily be anyone who Jane meets, and then we lurch into paranoia and peril when all will be revealed in a wave of daylight dreadfulness.Critics were (are) very much divided about the picture, complaints ranging from it being nasty and distasteful, to it being too laborious for its own good. But it has a very good fan base, and it certainly does what it sets out to do by putting those wiling to invest fully in it on to the edge of their seats. Recommended on proviso you are prepared to bare with it for the first 45 minutes. 7/10

In the early 70's I spent a day with my friend cycling on a lonely country road somewhere in Hungary. Then, in the evening, we saw this movie in a village movie theatre with only a couple of viewers. It was frightening, and after the movie we had to cycle home on the country road.Other: nice to see Sándor Éles ( this is the original spelling ), the Hungarian born actor in the movie.The hole film has a special atmosphere with a sharp contrast between the sunny countryside and the dark events. Interesting scene when the old man ( the policeman's father ) says that it's going to rain. In the final scene it really starts raining.One of the best suspense movies. Recommended.

Even though I have not seen 'And Soon the Darkness' before, it still brings on a sentimental feeling to me. It's not at all a sentimental movie but it is the slow pace, the suspense ánd the music composed by Laurie Johnson (The Avengers) that give me sort of a déjà-vu feeling.The story is not a complex one. It's about two women going for a cycling holiday in France. They get an argument and decide to split up for the moment. One of them then disappears, and the other goes looking for her.Though AStD reminds me of (the original Dutch) 'The Vanishing', unfortunately the plot doesn't have that strength. Still, it's a decent thriller and a mystery until the very end. It is slow, but has enough moments to keep it going. The French spoken bits are not translated which makes us much relate to Jane. Pretty much all characters have their weirdness, but always within limits. This makes sure that it is all a believable scenario. The story is one that could easily happen, it is never outside of the feeling of reality. And that is what gives it it's fairly creepy atmosphere. What would you do in Jane's place?AStD is a movie which you could easily find boring. There is not much real action, but in a way, that is a good thing. It's a movie you should place and value within it's time. I've read that there was a remake made in 2010, and though I haven't watched it, what I read about it is that it is made more towards this age, with scenes of torture. There is nothing of such kind in the original one, and though I can appreciate and deal with highly violent movies, it is just not what AStD needs. Instead; it is the lack of it which is a good thing, as it all comes down to good fashioned strong suspense. It leaves more to your imagination. Suspense is something the British were very good at in the 70's, and though there are better UK suspense movies, AStD is certainly not the worst.They just don't make 'm like this anymore.