Meanwhile, Paul (John Leguizamo, Moulin Rouge) is working at his job in the theater, ready to change the movie reel when the time comes. The power flashes and he goes to see what happened, armed with his headlamp, which he wears to make his way around the projection room. He finds only clothes lying all around and malevolent shadows bouncing off of the walls.
Rosemary (Thandie Newton, Crash, 2012), a physical therapist, is at the hospital where she works, and when she goes out for a smoke, the world goes dark and all she hears are the sounds of destruction all around her. She goes back inside where a generator has kicked on and all she can think of is locating her nine month old baby, Manny, but she seems to be alone in the world.
As Luke wanders the streets in the rapidly waning daylight, he comes upon Sonny's Bar, which appears to be fully lit and functioning. Upon entering, he discovers that the place seems to be in full swing, jukebox playing and all, however it is devoid of people. However, he soon finds the bar is guarded by a 12-year-old boy named James (Jacob Latimore), wielding a shotgun. James is protecting the bar where his mom works until she returns, since she headed out to check out a light they kept seeing at the church down the way. After a bit of a pissing contest, James and Luke agree to work together to figure out what is going on. Soon, Rosemary finds the bar, as it is a bit of a beacon in the night. She seems to be going slightly insane in her search for her child, but calms down after finding other survivors. Luke decides to go look around outside and soon comes upon an injured Paul who was fortunate enough to find himself lying at a solar bus stop, still brightly lit. Luke brings him back to the bar and the four of them decide that they need to leave the city. But how? They decide to try to get to an old truck that still seems to have some juice. But to make matters worse, the daylight seems to grow shorter and shorter and their batteries seem to deplete almost instantly in the darkness. The group soon realizes that their only chance of survival is to stay in the light at all costs, unless they want to become another lurking shadow in the darkness.
I had seen the trailer for Vanishing on 7th Street on another Magnet movie and the concept intrigued me. As children, we are afraid of the dark, so Vanishing taps into that age-old childhood fear and transforms it into a life or death situation. The filmmakers create the tense feel of the movie with no real "monsters," only ominous shadows that obviously lead to death in some form or another. The acting was well done, but of course, with a cast of vets like Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton and John Leguizamo, you wouldn't expect anything different. Newcomer Jacob Latimore was especially impressive as this was his very first role and he was entirely believable.
There were a handful of special features, mostly featurettes on the mood of the film, how the actors felt about it and what it took to bring it to the screen. There are also several alternate endings, but honestly, they all conveyed the same ending, just different ways of editing it, at least that's how it appeared to me. There are also Fangoria interviews with Director Brad Anderson (The Machinist) and Jacob Latimore, plus the standard commentary. As for Blu-ray over DVD, the surround sound was very effective as there was lots of whispering in the shadows and it felt like it was all around you. The inky blacks and the sparse light really pops in high-def, so if you have a high-def setup, definitely go Blu-ray.
Overall, Vanishing on 7th Street is a pretty decent chiller/mystery. While the ending may leave some people wanting as the mystery is never truly "solved" or revealed, it spins a good yarn and would be a good rental for a rainy night.
