The Darkest Hour

Detailed Summary

Sean and Ben are in Moscow on business, facing a world of money and unscrupulous practices. The two men are not long in being swindled by a Swedish businessman named Skyler. Natalie and Anny are involuntarily stopping in Moscow after planning to visit Nepal. The four young people meet by chance in the trendiest nightclub in the city where they meet Skyler.

In the night, all the lights in the neighborhoods go out on their own and the five people go out into the street and see strange orange glimmers falling from the sky. But these lights are actually aliens invisible to humans who turn all life into ashes at the slightest touch. Sean, Natalie, Ben, Annie and Skyler take refuge, like the crowd, in the nightclub. The aliens manage to enter and start to disintegrate everyone. During the attack, Skyler’s girlfriend is killed by an alien after Skyler has closed the door of a corridor in his face. Finally, the five people hide in the pantry and wait.

After several days, they go out and realize that the city is deserted. Everyone is dead. As the building progresses, the group learns about aliens. As they approach, they trigger electrical devices (street lights, cars, light bulbs …) and detect humans through their electrical impulses; therefore, one can hide behind the glass, electrical insulation.

At the US Embassy, Skyler prefers to stay outside and Sean, Natalie, Ben and Annie enter the building. They discover a radio transmitter broadcasting in Russian a message and communication records that reveal that the aliens are attacking the entire Earth. From the top of the tower, the four friends see Skyler heading without seeing them to two aliens, since the car alarm is activated. Sean and Ben rush out but Skyler gets encircled and disintegrated before he has translated the message from the radio transmitter …

The quartet discovers that Skyler had seen light in a section of a building. The group goes there and meets two other survivors: a Russian girl, Vika and an electrician, Mr Serguei. The latter closed his apartment with bars forming a Faraday cage. This set helps prevent the location of humans by aliens. Vika translates the message from the transmitter and says that the most important countries in the world will be sending nuclear submarines from various parts of the world. One of them leaves Moscow the next day. Vika, Natalie and Anny go out to get some food, but an alien locates them and pursues them. Vika runs away while Natalie and Anny go to Mr Serguei’s apartment. The door does not close and the alien enters the apartment. The girls are hidden behind an inverted glass table. Mr Serguei shoots his rifle at the alien, but the latter recovers and disintegrates Mr Serguei. Sean and Ben manage to get out of the window with the rifle and Natalie gets out of hiding in order to open the window. Anny starts but too late, the alien kills her in front of Natalie who runs away.

After joining Vika, the group meets mercenaries who have gathered survivors and are armed with firearms. Four of them, Matvei, Yuri, Boris and Sasha agree to drive them to the submarine. They pass by the metro but an alien is there. The whole group is hiding on the rails, below the platforms, with the exception of Vika. This one, behind a pole, is close to being reached by the lightning generated by the alien. Ben catches Vika and sends her down but a lightning catches him and pulls him to the alien who kills him.

On a boat drifting in sight of the submarine, Natalie is separated from the group by the boat capsizing. In the submarine, a plan to retrieve it is scaffolded. Sean, Matvei, Yuri and Boris leave for the spot from which flares were fired. With one of the microwaves, the group kills an alien before parting, Sean goes to the trams, in one of them is hidden Natalie. Matvei, Yuri and Boris are facing three aliens. Vika, who had followed them, throws them Molotov cocktails, to force them to advance on a large puddle. The three aliens are short-circuited before being killed by the group. Sean enters the tram and finds Natalie. An alien goes up and sets off the tram. Sean manages to destroy it.

Sean, Natalie and Vika leave with the submarine while Matveï and his companions return to their camp. In the submarine, Natalie discovers on her mobile that her mother is still alive. Sean and Natalie learn that the Parisians destroyed a drill tower, a column of fire that dug the ground in search of minerals.

The film ends on a positive note.

Dead

• Russian policeman : At the beginning of the film, the light goes out in the nightclub where are Sean, Natalie, Ben, Anny and Skyler. They go out and join the crowd in a circle around an alien. A policeman approaches imprudently and touches the alien with his baton. The alien disintegrates it immediately under the eyes of the horrified crowd.

• Skyler’s girlfriend : The group scatters, panicked, in the box while the aliens kill everyone. While Sean misses electrocution and is helped by Natalie, Ben and Anny follow Skyler and his girlfriend. The latter passes a door and at the turn of the corridor where she runs, she sees an alien and retraces his steps. Skyler closes the door in front of Ben and Anny. The girlfriend runs to the door but the alien creates a lightning that seizes the woman’s neck before disintegrating.

• Skyler : After several days hidden in the larder of the box, the group goes out and discovers the deserted city. After dark, they enter a building but Skyler decides to stay downstairs. On the top floor, Natalie finds a radio transmitter broadcasting Russian. Sean and Ben go back to find Skyler to translate but from the top of the building with binoculars, Natalie and Anny discovers that Skyler is surrounded in a car cap by two aliens. After shouting at Sean and Ben to flee, Skyler shoots the alien in front of him but disintegrates the lower body by one of the aliens before being completely disintegrated.

• SergueiAfter the death of Skyler, the group goes to a building where he discovers a girl called Vika who guides them to Serguei, an electrician who made an anti-alien cage. Serguei has developed an electric rifle to bypass the aliens and kill them. In the evening, Natalie, Anny and Vika go out for food, but once inside the building, they realize that an alien is following them. Vika says she knows where to hide, but Anny prefers to go to the cage in Serguei’s apartment. Natalie follows but can not close the cage and leaves it open. Ben and Sean are behind the outside window as Anny and Natalie hide behind an inverted glass table, the glass allowing them to hide from the aliens. The alien enters the

• Anny : Natalie and she are trapped in the apartment. Natalie comes out of their hiding place and opens the gas and spans the window. She screams Anny to join her but she is slow to move away from the glass table. She ends up running to the window but the alien disintegrates her before she reaches the window.

• Ben : Sean, Natalie, Ben and Vika cross the city and are collected by survivors with weapons neutralizing the aliens. Vika having translated the message of the radio transmitter, they learn that a submarine will leave the next day. Part of the survivors agree to accompany the group and they decide to go by the metro the same evening. In front of the docks, they throw blisters to see if an alien is present. The bulbs eventually light up and the survivors take refuge under the docks, on the rails; with the exception of Vika hiding behind a pillar. An alien creates lightning that begins to approach the pillar. Ben goes back on the docks and pulls Vika on the rails but gets caught foot. He is dragged on several meters before being disintegrated.

Technical sheet

• Original title: The Darkest Hour
• French title: The Darkest Hour
• Russian title: Фантом
• Director: Chris Gorak ^1 , 2
• Scenario: Jon Spaihts ^1 , 2
• Director of Photography: Scott Kevan ^1 , 2
• Music: Tyler Bates ^1 , 2
• Producers: Timur Bekmambetov and Tom Jacobson ^1 , 2
• Production: Bazelevs Company , 20th Century Fox , Regency Enterprises , Summit Entertainment ^1 , 2
• Distribution: 20th Century Fox ^1 , 2
• Country: United States Russia
• Duration: 89 minutes
• Genre: Science Fiction , Horror , Action , Thriller
• Budget: $ 30,000,000 ³
• Release dates ⁴ :
  •  United States , Canada :  December 25 , 2011, France :  January 11 , 2012

Distribution

• Emile Hirsch (VF: Emmanuel Curtil , VQ: Philippe Martin ) : Sean
• Olivia Thirlby (VF: Nathalie Karsenti , VQ: Catherine Bonneau ) : Natalie
• Max Minghella (VF: Alexis Victor , VQ: Sebastian Reding ) : Ben
• Rachael Taylor (VF: Jessica Monceau , VQ: Viviane Pacal ) : Anne
• Joel Kinnaman (VF: Jean-Pierre Michael , VQ: François Godin ) : Skyler
• Veronika Ozerova (VF: Tatiana Goncharova , VQ: Ariane-Li Simard-Side ) : Vika
• Dato Bakhtadze (VF: Regis Ivanov) : Serguei
• Yuri Koutsenko (VF: Sasha Vikouloff ) : Matvei
• Arthur Smolianinov : Yuri
• Pyotr Fyodorov (VF: Alexander Medvedv ) : Anton Batkin
• Nikolay Efremov : Sasha
• Vladimir Jaglich (VF: Alexander Medvedv ) : Boris
• Anna Roudakova : Tess
• Ivan Gromov : Bartender n ^o 1
• Alexsandr Chernyh : Bartender n ^o 2

Source and caption : French version (VF) on RS Dubbing ⁵ and Voxofilm ⁶ ; Quebec Version (VQ) on Doublage.qc.ca ⁷

Production

With an estimated budget of $ 30 million ³ , filming took place entirely in Moscow, Russia, filmed exclusively with 3D cameras, from July 18, 2010. The production of The Darkest Hour was suspended for two weeks because the extraordinary air pollution in Moscow in August 2010. thick dark smoke caused by many forest fires, while blocking the sky, and the shooting could not resume until three weeks later ⁸ .

Notes and references