Coming Home in the Dark

What is it?

Coming Home in the Dark is a tense, realistic thriller movie from Aotearoa, produced in 2020. School teachers Jill and Alan are on a road trip with their two young sons. Picnicking, they are approached, intimidated and abducted by a man with a gun called Mandrake, and his companion, Tubs. Dark secrets and motivations are revealed along with the way, to do with a boys’ home where Alan worked a long time ago.

What to expect

The tense, well-produced thriller about murder, abduction and institutional abuse is realistic and convincing, especially so for a New Zealand audience, due to familiarity of setting, characterisation and dialogue. The gritty violence and cruelty is highly likely to shock and disturb children and younger teenagers, particularly as two young teens are callously murdered in the opening scenes. For those reasons, Coming Home in the Dark is classified R16.