The Dark Past

The Dark Past is a familiar story.

An escaped killer takes a hostage who ends up probing the killer’s psyche. Think The Petrified Forest or The Desperate Hours.

Here, the killer is played by William Holden and the hostage by Lee J. Cobb. The twist that Cobb is a psychologist that works through Holden’s “dark past.” This means we get a lot of out-dated psycho-babble that drags down the film’s third act.

Cobb and Holden are watchable, but that’s about it. Watch The Petriefied Forest or The Desperate Hours instead.