What would happen if the presidential candidates were trapped in a dark cell with no way out? Dominican friar and filmmaker Dominic DeLay has made it real --- for the length of his new thriller anyway.

One by one, the characters in "Inside Darkness" regain consciousness and discover their grim predicament. Fear of their unseen, presumably terrorist captors gives way to paranoia and suspicion of each other. And, by the end, they come to fear even themselves and the dark tendencies they hold within themselves.

"I wanted to see if the threat of death --- or worse --- could lead these three to cooperate with each other," says Father DeLay, chaplain at the Dominican nuns' Monastery of the Angels in Hollywood. "Maybe even listen to and respect each other. After the last presidential election, I was frustrated over how good and smart people could think so differently --- from me."

Karen Landry, a Lutheran Democrat who plays the conservative evangelical incumbent, admits the role was quite a stretch. "If she wasn't such an accomplished actor," says Father DeLay, "I would have been worried by her initial distaste for her character." Scott Alan Smith plays the liberal, third-party candidate, an agnostic religious studies professor who finds himself in way over his head politically. Russell Andrews plays a Marine colonel turned senator, a Catholic whose desperation calls his ethics and faith into question.

Father DeLay and Mud Puddle Films released the DVD over the summer but the trailer and first nine minutes of the movie play for free on the movie's website, www.InsideDarkness.com, which will show the rest of the movie in free weekly episodes during the last few weeks before the election. The online episodic version of the movie "allows people who can't afford the DVD to join the discussion," says Father DeLay.

A screening of "Inside Darkness" will be held Oct. 6, 7:30 p.m. at the Silent Movie Theatre, 611 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles. For information, visit www.InsideDarkness.com or contact Fr. DeLay, (323) 533-0306.