And Soon the Darkness introduces us to Stephanie (Amber Heard) and Ellie (Odette Yustman), two young women who are on a bicycle tour of Argentina. They had been part of a larger group, but after finding that tour dull, they decided to go off by themselves. They arrive in a small town and decide to spend the night. After checking into a motel, they head to a local bar, where the outgoing Ellie flirts with several men, eventually leaving with one. Stephanie goes back to the room and when Ellie comes back, she and another resident, Michael (Karl Urban), have to get the strange man off of her. The ruckus causes the alarm clock to come unplugged, causing the girls to miss a bus, and thus making them stay in town for one more night. They decide to explore a local waterfall and that's when tragedy strikes. Unable to speak the language and receiving little help from local law enforcement, will the girls be able to live through this?

And Soon the Darkness is a remake of a film with the same title from 1970. I haven't seen the original, but I can help but wonder if it is the minimalist piece of work which we are presented here. I also can't help but wonder if the script reads like the movie plays -- it has the feel of a drunk person attempting to recount a movie which they've seen, but they remember all of the details. We watch Stephanie and Ellie ride around, check into their motel, go to the bar, visit the waterfalls, etc. This feels more like a crappy vacation video than an actual movie at times. Once the "twist" happens, no one will be surprised, and even that is played in the most minimal, bland manner. Hostel and Turistas weren't good movies, but at least there was something interesting, if (hopefully) far-fetched happening to tourists. Here, we a crime which almost feels lazy and the movie seems to be daring us to care.

In a similar vein, And Soon the Darkness is one of those movies which put the protagonists (and as usual, female protagonists) into a "You get what you deserve position." Here we have two American females, both of whom are scantily-clad, in a foreign country where they don't speak the language. They have left their tour group to explore on their own. Ellie is a "bad girl" who openly flirts with the locals. Not only are they in a remote village, they then ride outside of town to the deserted site of the waterfalls. The movie keeps throwing these "Oh, they shouldn't do that" moments at us, and it then has the nerve to ask us to feel for the characters once things go wrong. Well, guess what movie, you can't have it both ways. When we watch characters put themselves in harm's way, it's hard to feel sorry for them. The argument could be made that Stephanie and Ellie didn't do anything wrong and their behavior didn't warrant any repercussions. Sure, there's an element of truth to that, but this is just another movie where the ugly Americans travel abroad and get punished for it.

All of that aside, the bland nature of the story spreads into the direction. No matter how we feel about the girls, there should be some sort of tension here, but there isn't. We know that something bad is going to happen, or else there wouldn't be a movie. Thus, there's no suspense from the beginning. Once things do begin to happen, we really don't care enough about any of the characters to warrant any sort of strong feelings. There's one surprising twist near the end, but otherwise, And Soon the Darkness is most likely the most bland thing to ever come out of Argentina. Let's hope this puts an end to the "harm comes to American tourists" genre.

And Soon the Darkness uses friendship bracelets as evidence on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 30 Mbps. The image is sharp and clear, showing only a slight amount of grain and no defects from the source material. One of the first things that I noticed about this transfer is that it's lacking in detail. While it would be wrong to call image flat, as landscape shots look great, in some scenes the background is notably blurry (even moreso than most backgrounds) and if a sign is more than a few feet back, the letters can't be read. The colors look fine and the image is never overly dark or bright. The Disc carries a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 3.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. During the crowd scenes and action set-pieces, the surround sound effects are good, showing nice distinction between the sounds coming from the center channel and those coming from the rear. The stereo and subwoofer effects are acceptable, but not fantastic.

The And Soon the Darkness Blu-ray Disc contains a few extras. We begin with an AUDIO COMMENTARY from Director Marcos Efron, Editor Todd E. Miller, and Director of Photography Gabriel Beristain. The Disc contains four DELETED SCENES which run about 7 minutes. All of these are actually extended scenes, as they are simply longer versions of moments from the film and only two contain any new information. "Director's Video Diary" (11 minutes) features on-set footage with commentary from Efron. We get some information about the locations in Argentina, most notably the flooded town which was used in the third act. The final extra is the TRAILER for the film.