"They'll come for us."
'After Darkness' is a 2019 disaster thriller that follows the Beatys, a wealthy family with strong political connections, waiting for rescue in their mansion after the sun mysteriously burns out, plunging Earth into darkness. At first, things seem okay for the family, due to stockpiled supplies, remote location, and their luxurious surroundings but as time goes on and supplies run out, tensions run high, and their chances of survival grow ever smaller...
The movie has the following tropes:
- Abusive Parent: Raymond: He mentally abuses, insults, and berates his wife and children, to the point where one of his daughters killed herself rather than put up with it any longer.
- Ambiguous Ending: It's left up to the viewer to decide if the sun really did re-ignite itself, or if the ending is the Beaty family heading into the afterlife.
- Ambiguous Situation: Did Georgina add the posinous berries to the dinner she was cooking at the end?
- Did the sun really re-ignite at the end, or is it just a sun in the afterlife?.
- Anyone Can Die: And, depending on your interpretation of the ending, everyone does.
- Apocalypse How: Class 4, possibly 5 Possibly none, if the sun really comes back to life at the end.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: And how: Family patriarch Raymond is an abusive husband and father who rules his family with an iron fist and isn't above insulting and berating anyone who dares go against his orders. His wife, Georgina, is still emotionally broken after the death of her daughter five years earlier, the eldest son, Ray, hates his father, younger son, Fred, is a coward who has presumably been bullied into submission by Raymond, and as a result, pretty much everyone is miserable and unhappy. Fred even says that everyone in the family is a coward and that they deserve each other.
- Braving the Blizzard: The characters do this as the film goes along and it gets colder and colder outside.
- Censored Child Death: If the sun does not re-ignite itself and the Earth continues to freeze, then Margot's recently-born infant is doomed after the two leave the Beaty mansion.
- Chekhov's Gun: It's mentioned that Abbey died after eating poisonous berries on the family's property. At the end of the film, Ray brings some of those same berries in to be mixed in with the family's last dinner.
- Control Freak: Raymond is strongly implied to be this, as he insults and berates anyone who disobeys his instructions and orders.
- Cosy Catastrophe: The Beaty family reside in a large, well-stocked mansion that has plenty of food and all the comforts of modern life. They're able to even celebrate a birthday while waiting for rescue (though it's not a happy one).
- Covers Always Lie: The film's box art depicts a figure walking towards a dead, snow-covered city, and three of the film's characters inside a tunnel. No cities appear due to the film taking place almost entirely within the Beaty mansion, and the tunnels don't exist.
- Death World: The extinction of the sun causes temperatures to plunge across the globe, with the implication that everyone will eventually freeze to death.
- Despair Event Horizon: Crossed a few times during the story, most notably when Raymond learns that there will be no rescue.
- Dirty Business: With their supplies running low, Raymond takes Fred out hunting. When they fail to find anything, they come across a truck with a dead driver and a barking dog; Raymond shoots said dog for food.
- Disaster Scavengers: Raymond sees some going through a neighbor's house after killing the occupants. two of them invade the Beaty's mansion at the climax.
- Domestic Abuse: Raymond verbally abuses his wife and children and has done so for years.
- Driven to Suicide: Abbey killed herself five years prior to the film rather than deal with her abusive father any longer.
- Dull Surprise: Raymond seems unfazed when he sees rats eating his stockpiles of food. He still doesn't seem bothered when their supplies get critically low near the end.
- Face Death with Dignity: The family does this at the very end when they realize that no one is coming to save them and their supplies are almost gone.
- False Reassurance: Raymond keeps telling everyone that help is coming; Ray doesn't believe so... and it turns out there isn't, but Raymond sincerely thought there was. Used straight, in that he keeps telling everyone that help is coming even when he knows no one is coming.
- Fleeing for the Fallout Shelter: Or, rather, waiting for help to take them to the fallout shelter.
- From Bad to Worse: The Beaty's situation continues to grow more dire as the film goes on and supplies start to run out.
- Glacial Apocalypse: With the sun extinguished, it's implied that Earth will eventually become too cold for anyone to survive. Subverted if you believe the sun re-ignites itself at the end of the film.
- Gold Digger: Raymond accuses Margot of becoming Fred's girlfriend just so she could come with the family to the tunnels for safety.
- Hates Their Parent: Ray has no love for his father at all. Considering how he treats everyone, it's no surprise.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Raymond berates Fred and Margot for having a baby while, presumably, knowing that the sun was going to be extinguished, and asks how they're going to care for it when it's born when there won't be any hospitals or medical care available. They can't answer his question.
- Just Before the End: The beginning of the film starts just before the sun goes out, and the rest of the film deals with the fallout after it does.
- Karma Houdini: Raymond never faces any repercussions for his abusive behavior. However, he does noticably soften up after his suicide attempt, including telling Georgina how grateful he is that she married him, and seems to have at least made peace with his children, even if there is no reconciliation.
- Killed Offscreen: Margot and her infant's presumed fate, if the sun didn't re-ignite at the end. Could also apply to the entire human race.
- Let's Get Out of Here: At two seperate points, Margot wants to leave the mansion rather than put up with Raymond's abusive behavior and asks Fred to come with him. Also done with Ray's boyfriend, who asks him to leave the family.
- Patricide: Ray sneaks into his father's study intending to kill him... but changes his mind and doesn't go through with it.
- Long Last Look: Margot does this to Fred before she leaves the mansion with the baby.
- Mercy Kill: Ray gives his mother some poisonous berries to mix into the family's dinner when it's clear that no help is coming. It's left ambiguous if she puts them in or not.
- Natural Disaster Cascade: With the sun going out, Earth is shrouded in permanent darkness, which will lead to trees dying and a collapse in the food chain, not to say anything of the planet freezing solid.
- Papa Wolf: Despite his status as an abuser, asshole father, and control freak, Raymond is still serious about protecting his family from intruders. He kills one such intruder near the end, and manages to get the second one out of the house.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: Ray's boyfriend begs him to come with him so they can spend their last days together. However, Ray chooses to stay with his family instead.
- Posthumous Character: The Beaty family included a daughter named Abbey who killed herself five years before the film's events. Her death emotionally shattered her mother and most of the family to the point where no one wants to talk about her.
- Self-Made Man: Raymond sees himself as this, and despises anyone who wants to inherit things from their parents.
- Snowed-In: Though not physically trapped inside their mansion, the Beaty family eventually can't go outside due to the extreme cold.
- Spiteful Gluttony: In the first family meal together, Ray helps himself to some of his sibling's food after they leave after being insulted by Raymond.
- Stiff Upper Lip: Raymond keeps telling his family that help is coming and insists on the family keeping up their daily routine.
- The End of the World as We Know It:
- The Promised Land: The Beaty family is waiting for rescue that will take them to some caves where they'll be safe from the darkness and the cold on the surface. It turns out there are no caves and apparently never were.
- The Stoic: Raymond steadfastly believes that help will come to evacuate.
- The Un-Reveal: Why the sun is going out is never explained. Nor, if you interpret the ending one way, how it manages to re-ignite itself.
- Trailers Always Spoil: A particularly bad example: the trailer shows the final shots of the film, with the Beaty family standing outside and looking up at the sun.
- Uncertain Doom: Margot leaves the family at the end of the film, taking her baby with her. Her ultimate fate is left ambiguous.
- You Owe Me: Raymond apparently was a big factor in getting a senator elected to Congress, and uses that to pressure said senator to send help.
