The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Stephen Hopkins

Writer (WGA):

William Goldman (written by)

Release Date:

11 October 1996 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Horror | Thriller

Tagline:

Control Your Fear

Plot:

Set in 1898, this movie is based on the true story of two lions in Africa that killed 130 people over a nine month period...

Plot Keywords:

Lion | Bridge | Railway | Africa | Train

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 2 nominations

Cast

Michael Douglas	...	Charles Remington
Val Kilmer	...	Col. John Henry Patterson
Tom Wilkinson	...	Robert Beaumont
John Kani	...	Samuel
Bernard Hill	...	Dr. David Hawthorne
Brian McCardie	...	Angus Starling
Emily Mortimer	...	Helena Patterson
Om Puri	...	Abdullah
Henry Cele	...	Mahina
Kurt Egelhof	...	Indian Victim
Satchu Annamalai	...	Worker #1
Teddy Reddy	...	Worker #2
Raheem Khan	...	Worker #3 (as Rakeem Khan)
Jack Devnarain	...	Nervous Sikh Orderly
Glen Gabela	...	Orderly #1

MPAA:

Rated R for some violence and gore involving animal attacks.

Runtime:

109 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Brazil:14 | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Iceland:16 | USA:R (certificate #33990) | South Korea:15 | UK:15 | Philippines:PG-13 | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:12 (w) | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/12 | Singapore:NC-16 | Spain:13 | Sweden:15

Filming Locations:

Songimvelo Game Reserve, Mpumalanga, South Africa

Company:

Constellation Entertainment

Trivia:

The rifle used by Val Kilmer is a "Lee Speed" sporter, most likely in .303 caliber. The movie rifle is historically correct and most likely came from a South African movie prop supply house. BSA made these rifles from 1892 until at least the 1930s in .303, 7mm, and 8mm. BSA offered several different versions and options on these rifles. The term "Lee Speed" was used for commercial rifles. These rifles were mostly manufactured by the BSA Company, who also made Gov't rifles (Lee-Enfield Mk1 NoIII being the most common) and had the machinery in place to make sporting versions.

Goofs:

Errors in geography: When Patterson is walking in London with his wife, the Pretoria Palace of Justice can clearly be seen behind his wife's shoulder (the film was partially shot on location in South Africa in 1996).

Quotes:

[after they discover the Lion's Den filled with skeletons, and are terrified]
Charles Remington: Lions don't do this. Lions... never had a lair like this. They're doing it for the pleasure.
John Patterson: They'll know we've been here.

Movie Connections:

Remake of Bwana Devil (1952)

Soundtrack:

Jungal Bahar (The Prey Song)

A tense, intense, and spooky hunt

"The Ghost and the Darkness" is a marvellous movie, in the literal sense: the lions come out of the long grass in the daylight or the groundfog in the darkness like the devils they are thought to be. No true motives are ascribed to them, as how could they be?, and that actually serves to make them more demonically terrifying. But whether they are the devils come to prevent Val Kilmer's Patterson from building his bridge, or merely (!) animals hunting for the pleasure of it, they provide more suspense, more terror, and more death than most high-tech cgi aliens. Michael Douglas's Remington, dispossessed of home and family in the American civil war, is an interesting character, but it's Kilmer's British bridge-builder in a time where engineers had to know how to shoot tigers and manage Hindu-Muslim conflicts fully as much as how to put up their structures, who is the focus of the film, and rightly so. Kilmer's performance is quiet, almost understated, but one of the best I've seen him give; he's fully convincing, especially as he fights the belief that the lions are, in fact, out to get him personally. "They are just lions," he says halfway through the movie, and you can hear how much he wants to believe it. John Kani also gives a good performance, contained mostly in small moments that are so true they almost hurt. The cinematography is beautiful, especially the of the lion attacks and their passages through the grass. Again, no cgi effects could convey so much beauty and lurking menace. This movie is beautiful, intense, and dramatic; I highly recommend it.