“STRAIGHT INTO DARKNESS” (2005)

Starring: Ryan Francis, Scott MacDonald, David Warner, Linda Thorson, Daniel Roebuck, James LeGros & Andrei Dumitrescu
Written & Directed by Jeff Burr
Chuck Williams Fan Club

Polly Staffle Rating: ****

“I don’t call it violence when it’s self-defense, I call it intelligence.”
- Malcolm X

In life there are battles worth fighting and those that aren’t. Most aren’t. Personal wars are necessary. All others are not. The easiest way to decipher which ones are worth putting up a fight over is to ask yourself what is at stake. If you or your family is under attack, you obviously have everything to lose, thus you will be fighting a personal war. A bigger country attacking a smaller one in hopes of exploiting resources is not. It’s a personal war for the country on the defense, but not the bully that is creating the mayhem.

Shot completely independent in Romania, “Straight Into Darkness” has the feel of a big budget epic that dives head first into the subject and shows the difference better than any film I’ve seen. Set during the second world war, two American soldiers desert their platoons. One does so to get away from the horrors he’s faced and the things he’s done. The other is looking out for himself. He has no regret. He just wants to stay alive. The war they are fighting is not theirs. They seek peace. In the end, they find it by fighting a personal war.

“Straight Into Darkness” is a hard film to describe. It’s not a political film per se, as it isn’t preachy and it doesn’t hand deliver a message, but it can be interpreted as being anti-war. It has western, action and horror elements as well, but it doesn’t fit into any particular genre. Having worked on over 20 projects, filmmaker Jeff Burr is mostly known for directing horror. Mainly sequels at that. Burr brought us “Stepfather II,” “Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III,” “Puppet Master 4,” and “Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings” to name a few. He was also the man at the helm of Duane Whittaker’s midlife crisis drama “Eddie Presley,” which I considered his best film until now. Obviously Burr’s influences are all over the map and it really shows in “Straight Into Darkness.” This is a William Shakespeare-like tragedy as we follow two outsiders a la “Easy Rider” through both a physical and a psychological journey with references to Edgar Allan Poe’s “Conqueror Worm” and Bill Mauldin’s anti-authoritarian “Willie & Joe” comic strips. It’s beautiful and extremely surreal. It’s very much like a dream. A dark dream that isn’t a full blown nightmare, but one that tiptoes through beautiful imagery, while throwing the ugliness of evil in our face. It doesn’t feel like you are watching a movie all. There’s very little dialogue and the eerie sights and sounds are almost nonstop.

The soldiers are Losey (Ryan Francis) and Deming (Scott MacDonald). Losey is the younger of the two. He misses the life he had before the war and can’t forgive himself for combat mistakes that took innocent lives. Though we don’t know for sure, we can assume he joined the military to do what he felt was right. Losey is now torn because he knows what he’s been doing is anything but right. Deming on the other hand has no conscience. Perhaps he has been numbed by the war or he may have very well enrolled because he wanted to cause destruction. Deming bashes a fellow soldier’s face in to steal his dog tag when we first meet him. In their travels, he treats Losey as hostage. Deming also humiliates an elderly woman in front of her husband and attempts to have his way with her. Unlike today’s combat, both soldiers may have very well been drafted and not had a say in fighting in the war at all. It doesn’t excuse Deming’s actions, but it could better explain why the men have abandoned their ranks.

Deming and Losey make their way through the war’s aftermath in Europe, hoping to steer clear of both the enemy and their own forces. They come across a destroyed church and a wiped out school. The soldiers take shelter in a still standing abandoned building. It is there they meet up with the survivors of the school - elderly teachers and their students, who are physically, emotionally and mentally scarred orphans. One child had his legs crushed by a tank, one girl wears a mask, others don’t have it quite as bad besides the fact they were abandoned by their parents and have now been thrust into the middle of a war they had nothing to do with. After their school was destroyed, the children were trained in the art of combat.

Soon German troops come marching in with a tank. Have they come for the Americans or is it the children they seek? Perhaps they have other motives and are purely looking to make financial gains. The American soldiers can try to run from the situation or they can take a stand and fight. Reminiscent of the Battle of the Alamo or the Waco siege, the misfits band together to fight the Nazis. They are able to hold the German army off for awhile, but there are just too many well trained and armed troops for them to win the battle. In the end, both Losey and Deming, who initially went AWOL to escape the darkness of the war, sacrifice themselves in order to save some of the children. It doesn’t make any wrongs they’ve done right, but that small bit of redemption is enough to leave the viewer with hope.

Putting a human face on war is one of the best things Burr does with his film. He uses quick flashbacks to humanize the children and the two soldiers. These aren’t long sequences that take you out of the story or give someone’s full history like Jean-Pierre Jeunet (“A Very Long Engagement”) does. They are extremely fast and show you a glimpse of the characters as people and not just as killing machines.

Some that do not fully grasp the film may write it off as exploitation because of the scenes involving children. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Burr used actual orphaned children and by putting them in his movie, he showed them more respect and understanding than probably any person before ever has. They’ve all been neglected and forgotten by society. It’s not just the children acting in his project that Burr is showing love to, it’s all children. From the abandoned child on the streets to those orphaned in the welfare system, to the children of war, who’s homes, families and normal ways of life have been completely disrupted or destroyed, to the students that bring weapons to school and gun down their classmates, to the teenage suicide bombers in the Middle East that willingly strap themselves down with explosives to commit mass murder. Children do not have a choice in where they are born. They do not have a choice in how they are raised or how others treat them. They have to be taught hate and when they act violently there is an underlying reason. Can we as a country honestly expect to bully those that are different and weaker with violence and it not have repercussions? Violence begets violence, so when we murder and maim men, women and children, we show an absolute lack of humanity and probably deserve whatever we get in return. It’s not anything new with Afghanistan or Iraq. It’s been going on for ages.

The “Conqueror Worm” is mentioned fairly early in the film and also brought up during the climax. It perfectly sums up “Straight Into Darkness.” In the Edgar Allen Poe poem, mankind is seen as a tragic play being watched by angels. Death is the shows hero, overcoming all. Poe is stating the only thing that is certain is we will all die at some point. Which brings me to my original point of fighting the personal battles and not the wars where there’s reason to be involved. We’re in this together and there’s no escaping the conqueror worm. Things will go a lot smoother for us all, if we do the best we can with the time we have. Also, keep in mind we’re not all on the same playing field. While the biggest worry of some is how to amass more riches, there are others out there fighting to stay alive.

- CCF, July 2006

“Out, out are the lights. Out all! And, over each quivering form, the curtain, a funeral pall, comes down with the rush of a storm while the angels, all pallid and wan. Uprising, unveiling, affirm that the play is the tragedy, ‘Man.’ And its hero the Conqueror Worm.”
- Edgar Allan Poe