In the Dark
In the Dark
PG-13 | 12 January 2013 (USA)
In the Dark Trailers

Aspiring artist Ali must rebuild her life after a tragic accident kills her husband and their young child, and leaves her blind. Life in the dark proves to be a daunting task, so, at her doctor's suggestion, she hires a caretaker named Jeff to help her adjust with the transition. Jeff's aid proves to be indispensable, she even meets and quickly befriends her new neighbor, Linda. Before long, she is embroiled in a fight for her life from an obsessive predator. Will she learn to protect herself using her only remaining senses in time to save her life?

Reviews
Nonureva Really Surprised!
Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.
Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.
Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Michael Ledo Ali Lear (Elisabeth Röhm) loses her family and eye sight in an accident. She gets assigned Jeff (Sam Page) to help her adjust. Jeff has spent his life with a blind mother. Jeff takes advantage of the situation and becomes a possessive voyeur.This is a well acted film, but didn't make much sense as his relationship with Ali could have escalated to another level making his sneaking around totally unnecessary. Not overly entertaining as it is slow developing and goes practically nowhere. Parental Guide: No f-bombs, sex, or nudity.
Leofwine_draca The 'blind person in peril' sub-genre of film-making is actually quite a packed one. It really took off in the 1950s and '60s in Britain with the likes of Patricia Dainton in WITNESS IN THE DARK, although America made one of the best of the genre with Audrey Hepburn's WAIT UNTIL DARK. It comes as little surprise that the 2013 TV movie IN THE DARK can't hope to hold a candle to these earlier, similar films.The truth is that this is one of the most predictable films I've ever watched. It begins with a poorly-filmed car accident (featuring a cameo from STARSHIP TROOPERS star Patrick Muldoon) and follows up with a newly blind woman struggling to adjust to her surroundings and life. To help her, she's given a carer to assist with her day-to-day life, but all doesn't go according to plan...The problem I have with these television movies is that the protagonists are always so dim and that's no exception here. Elisabeth Rohm plays woman who's dim beyond belief, who can't work out what's staring her in the face. I trust that nobody in real life would really be as stupid as she acts here, and her stupidity is one reason that it's impossible to sympathise with her plight.The supporting cast are little better; the actors include a near unrecognisable Shannon Elizabeth (the American PIE films) and Elizabeth Pena (*BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED) and both are poor, although not as poor as Sam Page playing the carer. And, unforgivably, IN THE DARK is an extremely slow film with very little going on apart from lots of obvious and repetitive scenes. It only gets going at the climax, and then it's abruptly all over. It's pretty much a waste of time.
edwagreen Only until the end of this dreadful movie do you discover why an apparent mild-mannered care giver become a sadistic killer. Much more of his earlier life should have been shown.It was bad enough that a young artist was blinded in a car accident which killed her husband and young daughter, but then she falls prey to this guy.One would think that romance would blossom between the two. The opposite occurs when he kills her new neighbor.The acting is good here but the writing is absolutely dreadful. All of a sudden, the female doctor who had recommended this guy finds out disturbing things about him. No. The credibility here leaves a lot to be desired.This is certainly not one of these blind adjustment movies.
BRADFORDRYOUNGS-1 Found this review online:Lifetime Movie In The Dark: A Beginner's Guide To Being A Blind Woman 2 days ago by Jill O'Rourke0 Comments and 6 ReactionsShare a TipGuys, I might have found my favorite Lifetime movie ever in this week's In the Dark. After last weekend's snoozefest An Amish Murder, it was great to see the network get back to what they do best: suspenseful thrillers about how evil men are. That's the Lifetime I know! Our heroine is Alijandra (Alijandra! Alijandra! Ali-alijandra! Ali-alijandra!), Ali for short (played by Elisabeth Rohm), an artist whose husband and adorable little hobbit-haired daughter are tragically killed in a car accident that leaves Ali blind. The Evil Man of the Week is Jeff (Sam Page, whom you might recognize as Joan's terrible husband on Mad Men, Serena's professor boyfriend on Gossip Girl, or the co-star of one of my favorite J.Crew catalog covers), the man appointed as Ali's aid. She needs one, because according to this movie being blind is a lot like those old Sprite commercials with the "sublymonal" messages. Am I the only one who remembers those? The story is very reminiscent of Wait Until Dark. For those of you who, unlike me, didn't watch Turner Classic Movies religiously at age 14, Wait Until Dark is an Audrey Hepburn movie referenced in one of Blair Waldorf's Gossip Girl dreams. With me now? Basically, a blind woman finds herself in danger and must save herself. Ali becomes fond of Jeff, as evidenced by the fact that, even though she stumbles around her apartment after six months of being blind, she touches his face once and knows he's handsome. Impressive. However, we as an audience are soon clued in to the fact that Jeff is pretty unstable and creepy. Lifetime is very good at showing this (see: Fatal Honeymoon). Sam Page fortunately went to the Lifetime School of Evil Acting, where you learn to talk like a robot, smile at inappropriate times, and burst into fits of rage at the drop of a hat. A good example is when he sees that Ali's new friend Linda (Shannon Elizabeth) is over for breakfast, and she brought croissants. Jeff excuses himself and furiously crumples up the bag of bagels he'd brought. DAMN IT! CROISSANTS ALWAYS BEAT BAGELS! LINDA MUST DIE! (We'll get to that.) Turns out there are so many more creepy things a stalker can do if his victim can't see him there. Lifetime knew this, and they took advantage of it. Jeff tapes his face over Ali's husband's face in photos on the wall, which she of course can't see. He videotapes her taking showers. When Ali parts the clothes in her closet to pick out an outfit, he's there behind her sweaters, watching her. All just a few pieces adding up to best Lifetime movie ever. Jeff is so close to getting away with it, too, until Ali invites Linda over for dinner. First Linda brings sweet potato casserole. Always upstaging him with food! Then she sees the altered photos where he hid them in the bathroom. Something must be done about this. Jeff takes the casserole dish Linda conveniently left behind over to her apartment. For some reason Linda lets him in even though she now suspects he's a creepy stalker. He then proceeds to kill her with her very own casserole dish. So poetic. A few days go by, and Ali is craving some Linda time. Maybe she's sick of Jeff's bagels and wants some croissants. She calls and calls, but Linda never answers. Ali finally takes matters into her own hands and goes over to Linda's place, to find her dead. If only Ali had remembered to get that sweet potato recipe before… Later that night, Ali receives an ominous message from her doctor telling her that she looked into Jeff's background and found some disturbing things, because disturbing background check results always turn up a little too late. Suddenly Ali remembers every suspicious thing Jeff ever did, yet she still for some reason leaves her apartment door unlocked for him to come in. First rule of being a blind woman: invest in a deadbolt. So begins an edge-of-your-seat climax in which Jeff tries to attack Ali and she uses her blind woman experience to outsmart him. The most important tactic she uses? Spray paint his eyes so that he can't see either. Works like a charm. After Ali kills him (I think), she gets a guide dog. Probably would have been a better option to begin with, but no, Ali had to have her bagels! Let's hope this movie is a sign of things to come from Lifetime. The more creepy closet lurkers, the better, if you ask me. (Image: Lifetime) You can reach this post's author, Jill O'Rourke, on twitter.