Dark Days Review

This documentary follows a group of homeless people, living in crude homes in tunnels off the New York subway.

by Kim Newman |
Published on
Release Date:

09 Mar 2001

Running Time:

86 minutes

Certificate:

15

Original Title:

Dark Days

Marc Singer spent two years making this stark, black and white documentary, abandoning the surface world to join a community surviving in home-made shacks pieced together from salvage, in tunnels connected to the New York subway.

Dark Days suggests these subterraneans represent a more enterprising type of bum than those who stay above ground. However, there are obvious privations and dangers, and a shack-dweller who insists he doesn't feel homelace is told to face facts.

Yet there's a happy ending of sorts, as a potentially dreadful confrontation with the zero-tolerant railway company is sideswiped by legal action that gets the dark dwellers rehoused in modest apartments that, after mucho footage shot with swarming rats in the background, seem like palaces.

Director Singer actually lived in the tunnels himself for a while, so the result is fascinating and never patronising.
Just so you know, whilst we may receive a commission or other compensation from the links on this website, we never allow this to influence product selections - read why you should trust us