June’s episode of “Into the Dark”, titled “They Come Knocking”, is about a father and his two daughters on a road trip to spread the ashes of their mother. Once they have arrived at the remote spot where the father purposed, the episode takes a frightening turn when the struggling family is stalked by black eyed children.
The episode is the most emotionally driven episode to date. As we watch flashbacks and see the family’s tension, the story of the mother’s illness and death comes to light. I’ll be honest, this part of the episode got under my skin. The mother’s passing and the emotional wreckage hit so close to home for me. You see, my father went through something so similar as cancer took him. I could relate a little too well to the family. I may have even shed a tear or two.
The blacked eyed children, characters we do not see often enough in film, are creepy as hell. Their facial features are very strange. Even the way they moved was odd, like an animal with rabies. Don’t even get me started the songs they sing. They were haunting. Speaking of haunting, we also get to see the entities appear as loved ones lost.
The cast nailed their characters. Clayne Crawford was fantastic as the grieving father. I’ve been a fan of his for a long time. Robyn Lively played the role of Val, the sick and dying mother. her portrayal is heartbreaking. Josephine Langford starred as the smart mouth, temperamental teen. But the best performance came from young Lia McHugh, she is incredible as the youngest daughter. The range of emotion she was tasked with projecting would be hard for an adult to portray, but she tackled them perfectly and made every mood believable. Bravo Lia.
Director Adam Mason, who also directed the “Into the Dark” episodes “I’m Just F*cking with You” (review) and the film Lifechanger, created a heart-wrenching episode that heaped on the terror.
To date, “They Come Knocking” is my favorite episode of “Into the Dark”. Maybe it was the way I identified with the family or the elements of horror. It made me feel something, which few films do these days. I truly enjoyed the episode and I think our readers will too. That’s why I’m going to give it a rare score, 5 out of 5.
