Darklight (2004)
[+]
(Foreign Titles)
Nomination Year: 2014
SYNOPSIS: In the Beginning, God created Adam and Lilith. Lilith wasn't into the whole serve and obey thing, though, so she stormed out of Eden and spent the next 6,000 years killing everything in sight. Adam rebounded with Eve, humanity ensued, and in due time became numerous enough to form a pseudo-Catholic secret society known as the Faith dedicated to hunting Lilith down and killing her. Which, a couple years ago, they did. Well, they hunted her down, anyway. However, despite the fact that the whole reason for the existence of their organization is killing her, they decided instead to mindwipe her and retrain her as an operative to assist them in their fight against, er, look, who cares who else they'd fight, just go with it, okay? We're trying to do a Buffy the Vampire Slayer ripoff here and we need a super-powered girl for it.
A couple years later, Faith scientist David Hewlett is working on an immortality serum under the direction of Faith elder John de Lancie. With a team like that, what could possibly go wrong? Dr. McKay is so sure of his serum, that he tests it on himself. And it works! It makes him immortal! By turning him into a plague-carrying demon. Just as Q planned.
Demon McKay goes on a killing/infecting spree, and the only one who can stop it is Lilith the Demon Slayer. Of course, since she's all mindwiped and stuff, the Faith assigns one of their non-super-powered field agents as her Watcher. Showing the same HR skills that assigned their main mad science project to the Hwelett/de Lancie pairing, the Faith's assigns as her mentor the guy whose nine-year-old son was the very last person Lilith killed before her capture.
Cue obligatory training montage, obligatory flashbacks from when Lilith was still evil, obligatory brooding from the Watcher, and obligatory CGI Lilith vs. Demon McKay fights. This was clearly intended as the pilot for a series, which makes casting their most talented actors as one-shot villains a particularly odd choice. In the end, of course, Lilith defeats Q and McKay, and the series didn't get picked up. Score: Humanity 2, Evil 0.
Greg Pearson
