Take back the night

Many directors have made their mark by directing a horror film that heralds the energy and themes important to them. Certainly, we will hear again from the director and writer Gia Elliot whose first film Take back the Night is released this Friday in theaters and on VOD simultaneously in the United States. Of course this film is not perfect but it shows again that a micro-budget is often beneficial for young directors to use the available elements in the best possible way and especially to succeed in proposing a non-formatted work that can be watched with interest. 

While some horror films are content to follow a predefined model and compensate for the inadequacy of a scenario with outrageous bloody effects, director and co-writer Gia Elliot prefers to stay within a realistic framework by incorporating only a supernatural element with the existence of an evil entity that seems to take a malicious pleasure in physically attacking its victims. 

Jane (Emma Fitzpatrick, also a co-writer) is a Los Angeles-based painter and YouTube influencer who seems to have a real following. After a party celebrating her first gallery show, she is confronted by a supernatural creature. The violent altercation seems to have caused her to lose her memory and she ends up in a hospital emergency room with several wounds and claw marks on her body. The detective in charge of the case will not only question her words, but will come to wonder if what happened is not the result of alcohol and mental problems. Jane then decides to use her followers to try to understand what happened and if an evil creature would not really be present in the underprivileged areas of Los Angeles and would not attack weak people. 

Of course, Take back the night does not benefit from spectacular special effects nor from a cast of recognized actors but it is successful in highlighting the psychological ravages of sexual assault and especially benefits from the actress Emma Fitzpatrick, totally invested and who carries the film on her shoulders.  Jane doesn't always make the right choices, but her real fragility makes her the perfect representation of the assaulted victim who must find by herself a way to regain her footing and face her inner demons. One almost comes to doubt whether Jane is really sane or is really confronted with a monster without a face and similar to a ghostly and unreal entity. 

Take back the night is an original first film that manages to hold our attention and if not perfect to make us spend a pleasant moment, the low budget horror films carried essentially by a female team are so rare that we can only support this one

Take back the Night 
Directed by Gia Elliot
Produced by Emma Fitzpatrick, Kwanza Gooden, David Elliot and Gia Elliot
Written by Emma Fitzpatrick and Gia Elliot
With Emma Fitzpatrick, Angela Gulner, Jennifer Lafleur, Sibongile Mlambo.
Director of Photography: Gia Elliot 
Distributed by Dark Sky Films
Release date: March 4, 2022 (USA)
Running time: 90 minutes

Seen on March 02, 2022 (press screener)

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