CUFF 2021 Reviews: Coming Home in the Dark
From the moment I was introduced to it, James Ashcroft’s
Coming Home in the Dark was an enigma. The motivator to watch it had come from CUFF Lead Programmer, Cameron MacGowen, who held the film in high regard and fully expected a big name streaming service to acquire its streaming rights. The teaser and the film descriptions barely gave anything away. All I knew going into it was that Daniel Gillies yes, Elijah from the
Vampire Diaries, Daniel Gillies was to play a psychopathic villain by the name of Mandrake and that the film revolves around a teacher and his family who fall “into a nightmare when they find themselves captured,” by said psychopath. With all the information I was given, I knew to expect a thriller set in New Zealand, featuring an actor I hadn’t thought about since my awkward tween days and that it was all supposed to be incredibly chilling nothing beyond that.