Philadelphia has been the setting of some of our favorite movies. The City of Brotherly Love played host to their adopted son, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone), as the Italian Stallion used a left hook to rise from rags to riches in the iconic boxing franchise. More recently, Philly native M. Night Shyamalan has used his home turf as the backdrop to several movies, including The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. But these stories largely stayed away from the gritty and grimy underbelly of the city as it exists at night and in the inner city. Netflix’s 2019 genre mash-up, In the Shadow of the Night, takes the forefront in showing viewers the hardscrabble and grimy part of the historic city.
Starring Boyd Holbrook, Michael C. Hall, and Cleopatra Coleman, it’s a mind-bending sci-fi story that plays out like a raw, noir drama with a time-traveling twist that spans over 30 years. Director Jim Mickle captures a macabre story and uses the darker side of Philadelphia as a looming character, framing the characters in a way that adds to the seedy and shifty tone of the movie. It’s an underrated gem that, years later – with its combination of gruesome, blood-soaked murder, emotionally troubled characters, and grim portrayal of Philly – is still the grimiest movie the streamer has delivered. It is even reminiscent David Fincher‘s masterpiece Seven in this regard.
The opening handful of sequences of In the Shadow of the Moon sets the tone for the rest of the film. In was the 1980s Philadelphia, Boyd Holbrook is Officer Thomas Lockhart. When he and his partner Maddox (Bokeem Woodbine) come upon a series of gory and unexplainable deaths that all look to be carried out by the same person, it is the beginning of a 40-year game of cat and mouse with a serial killer. His boss, Lieutenant Brian Holt (Michael C. Hall), is also all over the case and sees the series of inexplicable and horrifying murders as an opportunity for him to move up the chain of command and make a name for himself. When Lockhart begins to step on the toes of Holt, taking an interest in the bizarre series of deaths known as “The Market Street Murders,” a rift begins to evolve between the two. But as the case remains unsolved, the killer remains hidden, emerging just briefly every nine years on a peculiar lunar cycle to kill again, ‘
Lockhart and Holt will both discover that this serial killer case will have science fiction elements to it with a mysterious time-traveling portal that only gives them one chance a decade from the 1980s to 2024, to catch the killer. Both men handle the frustration differently as their relationship evolves. But at the heart of it all is the unflinching presence of some of the filthiest parts of downtown Philadelphia as it exists at night. From the streets you shouldn’t turn down to the alleyways that you proceed into with your own caution and into the dirty subway tunnels.
The first two-thirds of In the Shadow of the Moon is shot almost entirely at night. This is not the clean and tidy version of the city that Shyamalan likes to set his twisty yarns against. It is much darker and unforgivable in both its aura and ambiance. It’s not necessarily on a Kensington Avenue level, known for its rampant drug abuse and homelessness, still, it delivers an unusual grittiness and foreboding gloaming, which Mickle is trying to convey. It effectively adds to the haunting feel of the film, almost smothering the action with a palpable sense of hopelessness. There are no heroes like Rocky or David Dunn from Unbreakable; only time-traveling anti-heroes and cops trying to survive in Mickle’s crisply paced, well-crafted, and taut psychological sci-fi cop drama.
The over thirty-year trip the viewer gets to take with Holbrook’s Lockhart shows the actor in a way that he’s never been seen on film before. He excels at playing the bad guy in films like Logan and on TV in The Sandman and Justified: City Primeval, so sometimes it is forgotten that he made his first big impression in Hollywood as the good guy cop in another Netflix project called Narcos. Holbrook’s nuanced performance includes crippling flashbacks of his dead wife and a slow descent into a paralyzing obsession with a serial killer from the future who is on a mission that he can’t understand. And it turns out that there is a reason he feels an extraordinary connection with the sadistic killer that goes way beyond what you’re expecting.
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Michael C. Hall can do macabre and dark with the best of them. Look no further than his career-defining turns in hit shows like Dexter and Six Feet Under for proof. In In the Shadow of the Moon, he brings his A-game. With a distinct D.M.V. (Washington D.C., Maryland, Virginia) accent to the part of Holt, he adds an element of believability by taking on a unique local dialect that has to be heard to be completely understood. If you are from the mid-Atlantic seaboard extending up from Richmond, Virginia, through D.C., Baltimore, into eastern Pennsylvania, it’s unmistakable. Oddly enough, however, he is probably the most level-headed and stable player in this movie. As Lockhart becomes more and more unraveled in pursuit of the enigmatic anti-hero Rya (Cleopatra Coleman), Holt provides him with a sounding board and a compassionate ear.
Throughout In the Sadow of the Moon, there is an indefinable chemistry between Tom Lockhart and his suspect, Rya, from the future. By the time 2006 rolls around, Lockhart is a broken man, having let himself go. He’s a haggard single dad and ex-cop with a mangy beard and long hair. He has become completely obsessed with Rya, catching her and trying to understand why he has spent the past eighteen years drawn to the mercurial killer. Although he comes across as unstable, he still has Holtm who has become the Captain of the Philly precinct, in his corner to keep him in the loop to some extent and look after his teenage daughter Amy (Sarah Dugdale). It makes more sense when it is revealed nine years later, in 2015, that Rya has a close tie to Tom and explains why he couldn’t let go of the cold case. And it hits much closer to home than he expected as it turns out that her cause may have been noble and just all along. It is the delicious cherry on top of a wonderful mash-up of many genres, including intense cop drama, noir psychological thriller, and mind-bending science fiction, that is well worth the two-hour time investment.
In the Shadow of the Moon is currently available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
