What makes a movie scary is a very subjective thing. For
instance, when I first saw The Exorcist, the scene that scared me the
most (and the whole thing scared me profoundly) involved a character walking
into a kitchen and the lights in the room were blinking inexplicably. For some
reason I found the unnaturally blinking lights more terrifying than the
adolescent Linda Blair spewing pea soup on the priest. In most cases I find
more explicit, violence-based frights - blood-soaked exercises in graphic shock
- to be less effective than being slowly seduced into fear through a series of
incongruities or subtle shifts in mood. The factor that made the original Alien
so scary, and all the sequels so NOT scary, was the simple technique of
building suspense by not showing the audience the monster until the last
possible moment. Each encounter uncovered another small glimpse into the horror
to come because the imagination is so much scarier than any reality could ever
be. In many ways Wait Until Dark uses this exact technique to brilliant
effect, by slowly uncovering the depths of evil the antagonist of the film
(Alan Arkin) is capable of while simultaneously building our appreciation of
the protagonist (an almost irresistible Audrey Hepburn) as a woman of almost
genius ingenuity.
The plot of Wait Until Dark is labyrinthine and
almost irrelevant. It also unfolds in such a way that giving any but the most
rudimentary details could spoil the movie. Suffice to say that Audrey Hepburn
plays a blind woman who finds herself in the possession of a doll that is
stuffed with heroin and Alan Arkin is a criminal who wants - and is going to
get - that doll. He employs the help of two hapless low level crooks (Richard
Crenna and Jack Weston: both great) to enact an elaborate subterfuge to get
into the blind woman’s confidence and thus retrieve the heroin. Arkin offers up
what has to be one of the most menacing performances in film history, morphing
from a slimy hipster to mad-dog killer in the blink of an eye. His
transformation is so sudden and violent that he becomes the stuff of
nightmares. Hepburn, on the other hand, is gorgeous and innocent, yet totally
believable as a woman driven to the edges of her own sanity; forced to test the
limits of her own strength and courage in the face of unthinkable terror. The
movie develops in a way that slowly builds tension as we gradually understand
how much danger Hepburn is in, how utterly despicable Arkin is, and how he will
stop at nothing to achieve his goal. Not only is Hepburn’s life in danger, but
her virtue as well.
Everything boils down to the last fifteen gripping minutes,
as Hepburn fights for her life in a white-knuckle ride that takes us inside the
mind and emotions of a blind person struggling to level the playing field in a
world of darkness. This ultimately is the hook, if you will, that makes Wait
Until Dark an unforgettable classic. The shift in perspective is remarkably
effective as the darkness starts (as the veil it is to all sighted people) and
actually becomes illumination as the situation changes. Filmed in a composed,
Hitchcock-esque style, with a masterful, hair-raising score by Henry Mancini,
this is a classy, old school thriller that terrifies the audience as much by
what it sees as by what is left hidden.
- Paul Epstein
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