Lifetime
Lifetime really goes in an interesting direction with its latest thriller, officially known as Murder in the Dark, but try to find out any information about the movie online and you have to look under what was the original title, A Scream in the Dark. For once, I approve this title change because no one screams in the dark in this movie … and while the murder was technically not committed in the dark, it still works because the lead character is … blind.
Murder in the Dark stars Alli Wulfert as blind waitress Ash (short for Ashley, apparently), who works at a specialty restaurant called The Blind Spot (early online reporting lists the name as The Blind Pig), where pretty much the entire wait staff is legally blind. The gimmick though is that this is a dining in the dark experience, so it doesn’t matter if the servers are sighted, and their blindness probably helps. While walking to work one day with friend and co-worker Dani, the two are unaware they are being followed by someone dressed in black from head to toe, including gloves and heavy boots. When they enter the restaurant, the figure stops a few feet away, and apparently just stands there until the end of Ash’s shift (with a really awkward, much too quick dissolve to show the passage of time, the feet not exactly in the same spot). It seems the figure is about to approach Ash but head chef Andre exits and walks away with her.
The next night, a party of men come to celebrate the birthday of Cedric (played by Ashley Murray, who seems to also go by the nickname Ash in real life), who seems a little reserved and absolutely does not want to wear the ‘Birthday Babe’ cowboy hat friend and colleague Guy got for him. They seem like a rowdy bunch, and Ash is unimpressed by any of them as she goes through her usual spiel of the rules and regulations of the restaurant, confirming several times that, yes, she is in fact legally and completely blind. Dinner seems to have gone well, Cedric was impressed after all, and a bit tipsy as he leaves wearing the hat. He makes it clear that there might be something between him and Ash, and Guy seems to give him really mixed signals, telling Cedric — who we learn is a detective during the conversation — that he shouldn’t approach Ash because it’s too soon after his divorce — a year — and then tells him to go on in and win her over. I’m confused, but maybe Guy is too?. But he does go back in and Ash is even less impressed with him than she was before, mainly because his drunken nervousness caused him to go into what she called ‘ally-ship panic’ and then spill his guts, literally. Ash and her co-workers have a few laughs but also chastise her for not even getting the poor guy’s number. After the shift ends, Andre drives Ash and Dani home, but some person walks in front of the car and just stands there for several minutes before moving and letting them go on their way. When Ash is at home, we learn she has an app on her phone that she can speak with and that can read things for her, but it can’t read the date on the milk jug that she feels may be expired. She then calls someone named JP, an actual person who helps read things, or helps her see in general, when the app can’t. The next night at work, Andre reveals to Ash that he has a date after work with a chef from another restaurant, and Ash walks home. But she missed her keys on the table, so she has to walk back and she can see that the lights are still on outside the door — which is about the only thing she can see, light and dark — but the door is locked. She goes around to the back and gets in but Andre does not answer as she calls out to him. She finds her keys but trips on something, and as she feels around the area she comes upon a shoe and a leg and she realizes she just tripped over a dead body, assuming it has to be Andre since he was the last person in the building. She makes her way back to the kitchen, and accidentally breaks a glass in the process. She tries to call 9-1-1, and tries to clean up the broken glass, hitting a knife on the floor in the process. The figure in black has just pulled up outside, apparently to cart the dead body away, and Ash hides. When the person enters the kitchen, he begins using a strong chemical spray to clean up any residue from the murder, and notices the broken glass that wasn’t there earlier. Not wanting to take any chances, the mystery person leaves and the police arrive, led by Detective Cedric, which only makes things a little more awkward.
Lifetime
As the story progresses, Ash and Cedric do their best to work together, although Ash is in the typical ‘the police are doing nothing’ mode and wants to try to figure things out for herself, unaware that she’s now making herself a target, especially when she goes on her own stakeout at the park one day, using her microphone and earbuds to listen to the sounds for the music she wants to create, but hears the same recognizable footsteps walking along the sidewalk, following in the hope that someone will be able to catch the guy. One night at her house, she believes someone else is there, the same person from the restaurant because she recognizes the sound of the heavy boots and the one-handed knuckle cracking. She calls JP and holds her phone just far enough from a door frame and JP does see a shadowy figure move across the room, hanging up and calling 9-1-1. Ash grabs a baseball bat and hides in a corner as she has her phone situated so JP can see the room. He alerts her that the front door is opening, and tells her when to swing. She hits the figure in the stomach but before she swings again, he calls out and tells her it’s Cedric. That was close!
Ash later goes to the police station to try and identify the smell of the cleaner. Cedric is grabbing some donuts — sponsored by Dunkin’ — that Guy has offered, and Guy looks a a little heartbroken that his pal is cavorting with Ash, so he watches them in the interrogation room through the one-way mirror. Ash, unfortunately, does not identify the smell from any of the cleaners so Cedric wants to try a boot test as well (he finally decides that was a bad idea). Guy feels the two are getting into conflict of interest territory, but he also comes off as extremely jealous of Cedric and Ash’s growing relationship. While Ash is at home going through her record collection, she is using JP to read the covers so she can label them, and JP begins to drop some overt hints that he’s interested in her, and perhaps if he moved from Knoxville, Tennessee to Los Angeles they could start dating. Ash hangs up and blocks JP. When Ash goes to work, she learns Dani has been arrested for Andre’s murder, so she hightails it to the police station to confront Cedric, assuring him that Dani loved Andre. He says she had motive because her paycheck had been screwed up too many times, putting her benefits in danger (and the script does have some interesting factual details about the restrictions a person can have in order to receive disability benefits like no more than $2000 in a bank account, $3000 if they’re married). Ash is furious with Cedric and Guy offers to drive her home, telling her it’s for the best that she ends things with Cedric, telling her that he’s a good guy but a control freak, and she just may be as well … which she sort of confirms … so it would never work between them.
At work, JP shows up out of the blue, really angering Ash, accusing him of being a ‘chaser’, someone interested in her just because she’s blind, flying across the country to ‘screw the blind girl’. He admits he didn’t fly because he already lives there and she immediately assumes it was he who killed Andre. JP runs out, but Ash gives a statement to Guy about the incident, but there is little proof that JP is the killer. Later at home, Ash is taking a shower when she hears the shower curtain being slowly pulled back. She grabs a stun gun (water resistant!) that she got at a 24-hour military surplus store, but the attack gets Dani off the hook and Cedric releases her with an apology. Things do heat up between Ash and Cedric, finally (and after some bizarre dreams she’s had about him), and they end up doing the deed. While Cedric is showering, Ash makes her way into the kitchen and smells the cleaner from the murder. Then she feels around on the floor and finds a pair of boots, and now she is sure it was Cedric who killed Andre … but why? She goes to the restaurant as the only safe place she has at the moment, and after ignoring several calls from Cedric she finally picks up and accuses him of the murder because of what she found. But Cedric is confused and tells her the origins of the cleaner and the boots … and that makes them both realize that the killer actually is someone they both know very well. And he’s in the restaurant. The only advantage Ash has at that point is darkness, but will she be able to outsmart the killer before Cedric and the squad get there?
Lifetime
Murder in the Dark is a pretty effective thriller with the novel angle of the lead character’s blindness. Where the story works is in not making Ash, or any of the other blind characters, victims. Ash, Dani and Jean are all strong, independent women and their portrayals are all very positive, showing they are not hindered by their condition and can lead productive lives. That’s a great thing to see in a mainstream movie to help educate folks who see a disability as rendering someone helpless. One the flip side, Ash is just depicted as almost constantly angry. There is a moment when she’s explaining to Cedric how she became blind, and he says that must have made her angry, which shocked her (in a good way) because most people just react with sympathy. Yes, she was angry about it, so perhaps she still is and has a hard time letting go of that anger. But it’s ever present and sometimes makes Ash less than sympathetic, while Cedric is portrayed as the best guy in the world, always supportive and understanding even when Ash often lashes out at him. Another weird part of the story is how Guy is written because the way he either tries to talk Cedric out of making a move on Ash, or trying to dissuade Ash from getting closer to Cedric makes it totally feel like he is in love with Cedric (the look on his face when Cedric takes an extra donut for Ash is more than just a ‘dude, one donut, there are other people working here’ look). So the final reveal of why Andre was murdered leaves us with a ‘really?’ kind of reaction. But writer and director Taylor Warren Goff (this may be his directorial debut after writing and producing a long list of films that have appeared on the network) really seems to have done his research, especially in delivering the facts about the disability benefits (yes, I corroborated the statements Ash makes and it was accurate), and does a great job of not making any of the blind characters sad little victims who can’t function without assistance. Goff also makes good use of the lighting, or lack thereof, with Ash never turning on the lights whenever she arrives home. Why would she need to? But Goff also uses very colorful lighting during the night scenes in her house, and employs a striking red light (or filter?) during the shower scene when she is almost attacked. Goff really put a lot of thought and consideration into the project, even employing actual blind actors.
But some may also take issue with the fact that lead actress Alli Wulfert is not blind, feeling a blind actress should have been cast. Perhaps, but this is a demanding role, and with everything Wulfert is required to do, it may have added too much time to the production schedule to coordinate everything with a blind actress. However, Wulfert does a really great job of making us believe she really is blind in the way she uses her eyes, and how she holds her head and moves around various sets. I just wish she didn’t have that mean streak running through her performance. Every time I wanted to connect to the character and have some sympathy for her situation — losing her friend, Dani being arrested, feeling betrayed by JP — she meets every one of those challenges with rage, which really keeps us as viewers at arm’s length from the character. Other than that, she does a really nice job. Ashley Murray is also good as Cedric, a little uptight at first, a man who can’t hold his liquor, a by-the-book cop who is willing to listen to Ash but also does not want her venturing out on her own like Jessica Fletcher, but also making his attraction to her feel authentic to the point that we actually feel bad for him every time she goes off on him (and accuses him of murdering Andre). He really makes Cedric a good guy.
James Chrosniak is interesting as Guy because it’s really hard to tell who he is and what motivates him. Of course that’s not because of the performance, but he’s written so ambiguously but also overtly in love with Cedric … even though he really isn’t, so is that totally because of the writing or just Chrosniak’s interpretation of the character? Goff wrote and directed, so he’s also responsible in part for how the character is portrayed, so if there wasn’t any purposeful homoerotic undertones to the character, he should have written the character differently or encouraged Chrosniak to take a different approach with his interpretation. Of course, there are also times after Ash is on the outs with Cedric that it also seems that maybe he’s interested in her … or he’s just happy that she’s not into Cedric at the moment. He gives a fine performance, but the character is just confusingly written. Vincent Alvas makes Andre seem like a great guy and a great friend to the employees, especially taking care of Ash and Dani, so it’s sad when he’s the one who ends up dead. Goff did also employ some actual blind actors, notable Luna Vintner as Dani, and Cristina Jones as Jean, both doing some nice work, with Vintner having a much bigger role, making me wonder at first if she actually is blind (I had to do my research to learn that she is). Great work from the both.
Murder in the Dark really is an effective thriller, and I can see some inspiration from the classic thriller Wait Until Dark, with Audrey Hepburn as a blind woman terrorized by intruders into her apartment. The story takes a traditional thriller and gives it a new layer with the blindness angle, making it feel fresh and exciting. The only real complaint I have is just making Ash so angry all the time to the point it was almost becoming unpleasant, and that took away from some of the enjoyment of the story for me, and the Guy character’s motivations. Otherwise, it is a pretty solid thriller, with a somewhat surprising resolution.
Murder in the Dark has a run time of 1 hour 27 minutes, and is rated TV-14.