A large family gathers for a happy reunion and marriage announcement on Christmas Day at an isolated mansion, only to encounter a series of bizarre, demonic, and tragic events.
The story in Darkest Night unfolds as a Found footage (pseudo-documentary) "documentary" by a Filipino television journalist, Danny Valencia (Jonas Gruet).
In what are purportedly his words, Danny writes that he created the film from videotape found at the site of a 2003 unsolved crime.
On December 25, 2003, Michelle Espino (Issa Litton) and her husband, David (Allan Dale Alojipan), host their upscale family's Christmas Day reunion at their mansion in the mountains.
Susan (Anne Gauthier) and American Ken Tyler (DJ Perry) are engaged after dating for months in Manila.
After several other family members die or disappear, Susan finds an old book bearing the French title “The Way of Baphomet" and the motto Ensemble Toujours (Together Always).
Many years ago, a cult from France worshiped the demon god Baphomet and practiced black magic on this very land.
Susan reads from the book that, in the final rite, a man and woman must wed, and then the bride has to castrate her groom.
All the other actors are Filipino: The screenwriter and producer of Darkest Night, Russ Williams (originally from Tennessee) had lived in Los Angeles, California, for more than 20 years before moving to Southeast Asia in 2010.
[6] Williams reportedly had more reasons than just a lower budget for making Darkest Night as a found-footage film.
"[7] Nightmares portray some of our most deeply held fears, especially about family, according to the famous American horror observer, Joseph Maddrey.
For example, he explains the huge appeal of the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise (1984 original directed by Wes Craven) as a result of its exploiting these fears.
[8] In Darkest Night Williams and the director, Noel Tan, draw a direct line from ultra-realistic cinéma vérité style into terrifying childhood-type nightmares, disjointed time, claustrophobia, bad family relationships and twisted ghosts from the past.
[7][11] As Williams learned more about this legend, he discovered many similarities between the plot of Out of Time and the reported stories of the "disappeared" family.
He did extensive research into the various historic Baphomet and similar cults to provide additional background for the story of Darkest Night.
The characters and general family dynamic in the story remained the same, and the author only made changes necessary to accommodate a different culture, race and nationality.
[16] Founded in Southeast Asia in November 2010, the company says officially that its purpose is bringing film-makers together from across the globe to create quality Gothic, horror and similar "dark" films.
[17] A small group of American and Filipino film-makers met in Manila during late 2010 for the purpose of founding this company and producing Darkest Night.
[18] Darkest Night was produced in cooperation with the Michigan company, Collective Development, Inc. (see "External Links" below).
Shooting for the film began on May 2 and lasted 10 days, mostly in and around a rural mansion in Floridablanca, Pampanga in Luzon, where the entire production group lived together during that time.
Other cast and crew members claimed that they saw ghostly presences while the house was darkened and quiet during the ten-day film shoot.
[7] Finally, Darkest Night had its U.S. premiere at the FACINE International Film Festival in San Francisco on October 20, 2012.
[7] At the FACINE Film Festival, Williams announced that Maxim Media International (Scottsboro, Arizona; see "External Links" below) would release Darkest Night in the United States during mid 2013.
"Philippine Entertainment Portal" (PEP), the Manila Internet equivalent of America's People Magazine wrote that "Darkest Night combines western demons with eastern spiritual traditions to come up with an original recipe for suspense and terror.
[27] The response at the 2012 FACINE Film Festival was extremely positive with critical praise from Dr. Tumbocon, who said Darkest Night is "an awesome experience.
"[28] Additionally, other festival attendees praised Darkest Night as "extremely entertaining" and "a hell of a good film."
Asian critics were generally favorable; for example, Jason Wong said that Darkest Night is "an excellent, provocative 'found video' horror film."
Wong also brought up that he was glad this story was getting notice in the United States because he believed that the Malaysian government had been "officially" suppressing it.
American film critic, Mark Bullock, of the online magazine Hacked in the Head, stated, "I really enjoyed ... Darkest Night.
"[30] There was only one really negative review published, from the American critic, Martin Leggett, at "Best-Horror-Movies.com," who did not like the film's handling of its found-footage aspects.