RICHARD LAYMON’S IN THE DARK
Dir. Clifton Holmes, 2000
United States. 106 min.
In English.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 06 – MIDNIGHT
THURSDAY, JANUARY 11 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JANUARY 22 – 10 PM

Play a game with only one rule … keep playing

We are very excited to screen this never-officially-released adaptation of the never before-or-since adapted Richard Laymon novel, IN THE DARK. The novel follows librarian Jane, who finds a note one day from the unseen and unheard ‘Master of Games’, daring her to complete increasingly more drastic challenges for money as she gets drawn further into the perverse world of the game.

Laymon’s writing typically leaned toward the extreme and the splatter, but Clifton’s adaptation focuses on the discomfort of what goes unseen, steeping us in Jane’s mundane world as she sinks deeper into the game, seemingly unable to stop herself, and brilliantly tapping into the human impulse to find out what happens if we go just a little further. IN THE DARK feels like an art-house slow burn SAW without the on screen torture.

Shot on mini-DV on a miniscule budget, what Clifton Holmes’ Chicago-set adaptation lacks in budget, it more than compensates for in pure mood and dread, entering the rare pantheon of films that manage to improve upon their source material.