Why are movie sets so dark?

We can understand that darkness hides the horror and instantly makes a set more eerie but why do so many movies have to rely on such dark sets? We watch our movies on so many formats these days from phones, tablets, big screen tv’s and movie theatres. Trends are now for home viewing with streaming platforms on smaller devices – so why oh why are our movies so dark that we can barely see what is going on (not to mention the mumbling actors)

Darkness is the default stage for horror. All of the ghouls come out at night and are hidden in the shadows. While using a dark set is an easy way of creating atmosphere it can be used too much. It is a horror movie, we already know that there are ghouls hiding in the shadows, using dark sets can dull the impact of reveals by relying too much on the hidden aspects rather than the scene tension.

Dim light will dull the overall look of a movie, while sometimes this can be used as a plot point, think The Woman in Black (2012) where the overall tone of the film was imbued with the set colour. It can also make the narrative murky as everything looks similar and there is no contrast making it not seem real. Visual distractions of colour and tone can add interest to a movie and move the narrative along. A good way of looking at this is with The Bird Box (2018) The scary world is light and visible, but the characters cannot see – they are in the dark. This is a great way of playing on the scary things live in the dark.

The dark does match well with horror and will always play a role in hiding the unknown and increasing tension. It is more about having a balance between the light and dark and playing with these tools to enhance the narrative.

What are your thoughts? Do you enjoy the dark sets or do you enjoy a range of cinematic tools to give you the scares?