Coming Home in the Dark
Violence, cruelty, content that may disturb Rated on: 12 August 2021

What is it?
Coming Home in the Dark is a tense, realistic thriller movie from Aotearoa, produced in 2020. School teachers Jill and Alan are on a road trip with their two young sons. Picnicking, they are approached, intimidated and abducted by a man with a gun called Mandrake, and his companion, Tubs. Dark secrets and motivations are revealed along with the way, to do with a boys’ home where Alan worked a long time ago.
What to expect
The tense, well-produced thriller about murder, abduction and institutional abuse is realistic and convincing, especially so for a New Zealand audience, due to familiarity of setting, characterisation and dialogue. The gritty violence and cruelty is highly likely to shock and disturb children and younger teenagers, particularly as two young teens are callously murdered in the opening scenes. For those reasons, Coming Home in the Dark is classified R16.
Recent featured decisions
Violence, offensive language, drug use and content that may disturb
Hank Thompson, a burned-out former baseball player, is suddenly pulled into a deadly fight for survival in the criminal underbelly of 1990s New York, forced to navigate an underworld he never thought he’d enter.
Violence
While working on a humanitarian placement in French Guiana, UK Prime Minister Abigail Dalton’s husband, Dr. Alex Anderson, is kidnapped. At the same time, French President Vivienne Toussaint is blackmailed, forcing the two leaders, despite their rivalry, into a dangerous political showdown where every choice comes with devastating consequences.