Vanishing On 7th Street Review: All Style, No Darkness

There is a certain kind of disappointment that can only be experienced in a movie theatre. It usually comes after the first half of the movie where a viewer might think to him/herself. “Hey, this movie isn’t half bad.” Shortly after that the movie spirals downward toward mediocrity, with an ending that can’t arrive soon enough. I had this experience with Vanishing On 7th Street.

The film centers on an apocalyptic event where after a huge blackout the city of Detroit, and presumably the world, is plunged into darkness.  Everyone who wasn’t around a light source at the time of the blackout vanishes. It is then up to Hayden Christensen, and other random people he meets, to survive the endless nights by staying in the light. If they stray, they’ll be devoured by the shadows and vanish like the others.

The movie plays up peoples fear of the dark and the visuals provide a creepy and foreboding atmosphere. Even when there is a good light source, like the sun, the film still seems dark and bleak. It accentuates the shadows and darkness that encroach on our everyday lives, even in broad daylight.

There is practically no dialogue for the first 15 minutes of the film as the blackout occurs. This was a very effective way to accentuate the instant loneliness of 99.9% of the population vanishing . The people who are taken by the shadows leave only their clothes behind. The clothes left on the floor and in chairs is a cheesy but also unsettling effect. They signify a person was once there but isn’t anymore, kind of like how their shadow is left behind. This sort of theme of the clothes, the shadows and the eerie, ghostly whispers of  ”I exist”  work well when used sparingly. Well, Vanishing goes to this well over and over and over again, which dilutes the desired effect and meaning.

The cast isn’t too shabby. Sharing the screen with Hayden (whose character’s name is Luke, for you Star Wars nerds out there) is Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo. It’s a shame most of their dialogue  is useless bickering and forced plot explanation. I did roll my eyes at one point when John Leguizamo tells a story when this exact same thing happened in the 1600s. One of the things I liked about the film in the beginning was the lack of explanation. Not knowing what is really going on adds to the fright factor and leaves it open to interpretation. I got the feeling the script was on the light side and they needed to stretch it to 90 minutes so they filled up the time with people fighting and back story, when they should have kept up the thrills and chills.

Vanishing fails to deliver many scares in the second half of the movie. The dark shadows  lose their Nosferatu-like creepiness and become more like lurking cartoons. I got tired of the unlikeable characters constantly making the wrong decisions and wanted them to just vanish already. That’s the catch with a movie that doesn’t live up to it’s first 15 minutes – you have to sit though the rest of it to see how it ends. That’s what I did, waited for the resolution. Guess what? The ending disappointed as well.

There are certain messages that director Brad Anderson is trying to send in the Vanishing. Detroit needs saving. Don’t abandon our citizens or cities. Solar power is good. Don’t rely on fossil fuels. Buy American cars. But it’s hard to listen to these messages when at the end of the movie all I could think was the film should have gone straight to DVD.

I suggest when, on a dark night when you are flipping through your 100′s of cable channels and you come across Vanishing On 7th Street, you put down the remote and give it a watch, at least through the first half. Although, don’t be surprised when the movie vanishes from your mind just like all those people.