Being a teen in the early nineties, its hard not to feel a tinge of nostalgic watching Kevin Phillip’s debut feature, Super Dark Times. There is an eerie accuracy to Phillip’s portrayal of teens of that era. In the pre-Internet age, I too, like the film’s protagonist, tried watching porn through the blurry lines of pay-per-view services, gossiped about classmates while flipping through yearbooks, smoked cigarettes and weed when I had it, and held parties when parents went away on the weekend. I also had that same sense of not fitting in.

The nineties were a time when young people were angry, even when we didn’t quite know what we were angry about. You could see this unfocused, youthful angst in full display in popular films like Pump Up the Volume or the songs of Nirvana. The messaging said to be distrustful of the adults in authority; that they had sold out our futures. Why? How? “Oh well, whatever, never mind.”

Regardless of our lack of answers, it was the first time a generation became acutely aware that it was not going to fair as well as its parents. For those in adolescence, the nineties were indeed deeply cynical times. So yes, Kevin Phillip’s film Super Dark Times may be a somber watch, but it also captures a genuine feeling of distrust and paranoia that permeated throughout youth culture at that time.

Like most films that deal with adolescence, Super Dark Times focuses on a group of outsiders. I think of it as an inverted Stand by Me, but instead of seeing our small group misfit boys bond after the discovery of a dead body, we see how an accidental murder slowly tears friendships apart.

Super Dark Times opens with a foreboding sequence showing police killing an injured moose that made its way into a high school after crashing through a window. It’s a strange, dreamlike sequence that shows us our first glimpse of teen love-interest, Allison (Elizabeth Cappuccino), and foreshadows later the trouble to come. The imagery also helps connect this story with real-world school shootings.

Next, we are introduced to Zach (Owen Campbell) and Josh (Charlie Tahan), the two boys at the center of tragedy to come. They speak like real teens when they ogle the girls in their yearbook before killing time outside on their bikes. Outside a convenient store, Zach and Josh meet Daryl and Charlie. From the onset, its clear Zack and Josh are not the part of cool kids, but popularity has tiers and their status places them much higher ring than the overly abrasive, foul-mouthed Daryl whose hangs with Charlie, a neighbourhood kid that is only in grade eight. Zach and Josh take a social risk hanging out with these boys, but they do, and Josh even invites them over to his house the next day. Bad idea.

While at Josh’s house, Daryl takes a little too much interest with the stuff in Josh’s older brother’s room, like his weed and his sword, and the boys go off on an adventure to see just how sharp the sword is. While chilling, Daryl openly starts to smoke the weed he stole from Josh’s brother’s room, causing Josh to flip. A fight erupts ending with Daryl falling on the sword and it slicing into jugular. Daryl bleeds to death soon after the boys foolishly pull the sword out and in panic, the boys hide the body and make a pack to keep quiet about the event.

From here on in, the story follows events through Zach’s perspective. We watch as the guilt of that afternoon slowly eats away at him. Unfortunately for him, Allison also starts showing up at his house after he and Josh, in an awkward teenage moment that obviously screams “Somebodies got a crush”, are caught after being too loud while stalking outside her house. But all that happened pre-murder. Zach is not the same person now.

Super Dark Times is not a traditional horror story. In fact, it is not really a horror film at all, but rather a drama that incorporates a lot of horror elements to tell an extremely bleak story about how guilt can effect young people differently. After the incident, Zach’s interactions with Josh and Charlie help to contrast how each processes the event differently. Charlie pushes forward by ignoring the event while Josh increasingly loses his ability to care or fear consequences. But Zach, who proves to be the film’s moral center, doubts that their silence was the right action after the news starts to sweep throughout the community that Daryl’s gone missing. But horror fans, don’t worry; atmospheric horror is present, especially in Zach’s twisted, haunting surreal dreams that mixes the death he witnessed with his own sexual fantasies.

And then comes the third act.

If Super Dark Times has a flaw, it is that the escalation of Josh’s disturbing behaviour in the latter half of the film could be seen as forced, though Phillips sprinkles enough seeds in the early scenes to make his turn not seem completely out in left field. Of course, this criticism comes mostly from fact that the film stubbornly chooses to follow only Zach after the accident, which intentionally creates narrative gaps. Consequently, fans of the film have developed some interesting theories to fill the void, the most provocative involving Josh’s missing brother and Allison’s potential compliance. And though I am not a proponent of fan theories, I understand why the ones regarding Super Dark Times continue to spread on the Internet and- just this one time- will not hold it against people if they want to seek them out. I don’t prescribe to these alternative interpretations, but- for once- I do see the merit to them.

One of the things that elevates Super Dark Times is its inspired casting. Seeing teenagers depicted in movies that actually look and act like teenagers is a rarity, but Campbell, Tahan and Cappuccino all look and act the part. More importantly, they all have enough heft as actors to carry this emotionally bleak experience. It is no wonder why each of these young actors have continued to find roles afterwards. Phillips should be commended for taking a chance on so many newcomers, giving them each a vehicle to help showcase their talent.  

Super Dark Times is a story that is a well-acted, engaging coming-of-age story that also successfully captures the feelings of a particular era. At its best, it offers an authentic look at adolescence that rarely makes the screen. Put simply, this is one of the best films of the post-Columbine era that reminds us that the signs of a distressed youth are not always easy to see, even by those closest to them.

Growing up can be Hell.