Coming Home in the Dark

A quiet family drive turns into an escalating nightmare when two enigmatic drifters pull a schoolteacher and his family off course, turning a routine trip into a claustrophobic test of wills. As the strangers strip away safety and civility, the teacher's dark past begins to surface, and his attempts to protect his loved ones collide with secrets he'd hoped were buried. Tension grows through a series of escalating intimidations and moral reckonings, with the story focused on fear, coercion, and the long shadow of a violent mistake from years before, all while the family scrambles to survive an increasingly ruthless ordeal.

Directed by James Ashcroft and written by Owen Marshall and Eli Kent, the film arrived in 2021. The cast includes Daniel Gillies, Erik Thomson, Miriama McDowell, Matthias Luafutu, and Frankie Paratene, and the production favored a stripped-back, character-driven approach that keeps most of the action confined to a handful of locations.

The movie drew attention on the festival circuit and among genre fans, though it did not sweep major international awards. Critical response was mixed, with praise for atmosphere and performances balanced against discomfort with the film's bleakness and intense violence.

The film sparked conversation about portrayals of male violence and accountability, with several scenes becoming touchpoints in online discussion for their raw, unsettling tone. Its roadside confrontations and long stretches of tense silence made it stick in viewers' minds, prompting debate about how far a thriller can push moral ambiguity.

Critics were divided, reflected in a middling voter average of about 5.7 out of 10, but many noted the film's willingness to sit in moral unease rather than tidy resolutions. Themes of guilt, retribution, and the cost of past actions run through the work, and the ensemble cast was often singled out for grounding the story amid its stark and often brutal circumstances.