The Darkest Dawn has a much steadier filming hand compared to its predecessor Hungerford; it’s less chaotic and more youtube blog video, which is a plus if you hate the erratic camera movement.

The Darkest Dawn centers around aspiring journalist Chloe Murdock, who receives a video camera for her sweet sixteenth; she begins capturing snippets of her everyday life, including the news reports of a freak storm in Hungerford. Not long after the initial reports, Chloe’s mum goes missing and not long after that there’s a mass evacuation of her town. The invasion from the end of Hungerford has begun, causing hysteria and a close encounter with a plane crash; the insects begin dropping from the sky, infecting Chloe’s dad and resulting in his death; Chloe and older sister, Sam, are saved by the very unstable Bob.

Bob seems to hate Chloe with every fibre of his being, despite keeping the pair safe in some underground tunnels of London, and his behaviour becomes increasingly disturbing with each new clip. After an unknown passing of days, the trio hear voices in the tunnels; Cowen, Adam and Kipper have been searching for a base in the tunnels and stumble across them. Adam and Bob immediately butt heads, but Kipper and Cowen are willing to help and share supplies.

Cowen’s group are still searching for Adam’s sister Phil, who was taken by the infected in the first film, and camp with Chloe’s group for the night; however, Bob ambushes Cowen while they sleep and Adam strangles Bob protecting Cowen. Chloe and Sam join Cowen’s group, figuring it was safer with them than anywhere else; they eventually stumble across the ‘base’ they were looking for but it’s empty, aside for dying the doctor, Helen, who circles Manchester in her own blood before slipping away.

Trying to figure out where the others have gone, the group discover something called ‘Project Ascalon’ and the manifesto of members who were at the base; Phil is alive, and heading towards an evacuation point a few miles away.

The group exit the tunnels to find London destroyed. Kipper finds a boat and they head up river, hoping to catch up to the evacuation point; they make a stop at a lone house on the river bank and Cowen heads inside with Adam to look for supplies. Chloe follows shortly after and they discover an old man and his dead wife upstairs; the old man offers Adam and apple for his safety and Cowen takes Adam back onto the landing to talk in private; Cowen wants to give the apple back, but Adam argues that the old man is dead whether he has the apple or not. There’s a gunshot. Adam intentionally left his gun with the old man, saying he ‘gave him a choice’, and retrieves his gun before leaving.

Further up the river, obvious ambush is obvious when a young boy runs outside begging for help; as everyone rushes in, Adam is the only one smart enough to hang back while the others are held at gunpoint. The three men decide to keep Chloe and kill the others, but Adam shoots two of them and Chloe stabs their leader to death.

Their luck only gets worse when they are attacked by yet another crazy group, but also one of the invading ships; the boat is ruined and they group continue on foot, discovering a group of infected chasing a young woman; worried it’s Phil, Adam rushes to help. It’s not Phil, but the woman is dying and Adam ends her suffering; Adam briefly freaks and tries to kill himself, but is stopped by Cowen, convincing Adam he did a mercy kill and it was ok.

The group try to relax at night, but Sam can’t handle the lively atmosphere after watching her sister kill a man; Kipper assures her she’s doing well protecting Chloe and the group narrowly avoid another invading ship before settling down for the night. In the early morning, the camp is found by Hopper, who is the ultimate twat, and Ricky; Hopper wants to kill a few of them, but Ricky reports back to Sarge that they found the group.

At the temporary camp, Cowen meets a familiar face. Sarge is the man who led his escape from the factory and out of Hungerford; Cowen explains they’re looking for Phil and Sarge calls out ‘Pip’ – Pip is Phillipa and there’s an emotional reunion for the flatmates. In the barn, Sarge explains that he went back inside the factory and found Phil, and has been keeping her safe since; it’s clear Sarge cares for Phil like a daughter and it’s adorable!

Cowen tells them they found the tunnel base and Helen, showing them the map she’d circled. Phil tells them it’s not a circle, Helen and a team of doctors had discovered type O- blood subdues the parasite the bugs inject. Sarge won’t divulge what Ascalon is.

Sam warns Chloe not to tell the soldiers she’s type O-, saying it could be dangerous for her if they knew. Chloe tries to find out what is in a guarded box the soldiers are referring to as ‘Ascalon’, when an invading ship passes over and begins dropping bugs; survivors of the attack take shelter in the barn, but it’s soon apparent Phil is infected, in the panic Chloe tell the group she has the blood type they need.

Sam’s a nurse and helps with the transfusion, Phil returns to normal; Sarge explains Ascalon is a weapon they took from one of the ships they managed to take down, and the group settle down. During the night, Hopper and a few other soldiers mutiny – they kill Sarge and take Chloe for her blood along with the mysterious box; the others try to ambush them at the evacuation point, but the infection tries to take hold of Phil again and they’re caught.

Hopper and his crew hold them at gunpoint, he kills Sam out of spite and takes the others to the box. Hopper states that he will use Ascalon to defeat the invasion, when a green light from the weapon throws everyone to the floor; Hopper accidentally summoned a ship and the evacuation point is under attack.

Cowen and others secure the weapon in the chaos and radio for evacuation, which will only happen if they have the weapon with them; however, Adam recognises that they won’t get far with the ship nearby and takes Ascalon to destroy it. The rest manage to get on the helicopter with the now empty box, and moments later there’s a huge explosion that wipes out the ship.

Phil gets another transfusion from Chloe and asks for Adam when she wakes. Chloe, in anger and sorrow, drop the camera from the helicopter.

The Darkest Dawn is less alien invasion and more apocalyptic survival; it’s unclear how much time has passed between the initial invasion in Hungerford and Cowen’s group finding Chloe and Sam. It seems that the UK (or at least London and its surrounding areas) have fallen into anarchy rather quickly, and that the military leaders were ready to surrender in the first days of the invasion – which I find unrealistic that they would surrender so easily. There are smoother transitions between clips and the film feels a lot less choppy than Hungerford did; Cowen and his friends have fleshed out characteristics off screen between films, more mature and obviously mentally scarred by the things they’ve seen.

While a different POV for the film is a nice change, Sam and Chloe bring little to the screen other than plot convenience in the last half hour of the film.

Also, where the hell was Jenine from the first film? Did she die? Cowen got over her quick!

3.5/5: It’s a lot smoother and well paced. However, there are some unanswered questions from Hungerford: what was the alien creature at the end of it? How quickly did it go from a small invasion to the destruction of London? Who trained Cowen and the others weapons combat? What were the web like cocoons?