Mother of Darkness - Das Haus der dunklen Hexe

Was drawn into seeing 'Darkness Rising', with as said for many films seen an intriguing if not exactly novel premise and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

'Darkness Rising', simply put, turned out to be a terrible film and waste of potential with next to no redeeming values and so much done catastrophically wrong. One of the worst films seen in a while, which is saying a lot for somebody who on the most part has been encouraged by their film/television watching and has more often than that been quite generous. Decent idea, horrendous execution.

Lets start with one positive. The scenery is atmospheric, if wasted by the schlocky way the film is shot and particularly edited.

However, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary. Too many characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their irritating and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrate. Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The acting is pretty bad to put it lightly and the effects are ropy at best.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling, not to mention far too exposition-heavy, while the pace is uneven, dragging in a lot of the first half, which goes on forever and fails to get going, and never is it exciting after a truly irrelevant beginning. Found too many the supposedly shocking moments not surprising or scary and the supposedly creepy atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness and the lack of tension and suspense. Too many elements are introduced, and then dropped, barely explored or don't go anywhere, sometimes even all three.

A lot of the film completely fails to make sense, both in underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations. There is a lot of choppiness and lack of coherence. The threat is poorly used and poses very little threat. The film completely peters out with an ending that felt like an afterthought.

All in all, terrible. 1/10 Bethany Cox

Nearly murdered as a child by her mother, a woman (Katrina Law) returns to the (now abandoned) house where her mom went mad.

On its face, the story is relatively simple and minimalistic. A group of three friends break into a house that one of them grew up in, and find that even twenty years later some of the things left behind are intact. Which may seem a bit far-fetched in a world full of urban spelunkers, but just go with it. Underneath this though, is a far more interesting concept.

We are presented the idea that there could be such a thing as architecture-induced homicide. Rather than a house being haunted by spirits, the building itself causes those inside to go insane by the very way it was constructed. Strictly speaking, this is not a new idea. No less a figure than Lovecraft pursued this line of thinking with his "non-Euclidean geometry", and a connection between architecture and evil is suggested in "Ghostbusters II" (itself influenced by Lovecraft). Yet, this remains a rare plot point, and the writer deserves praise merely for attempting it.

The effects are minor, but for the most part well done. There are some decent makeup effects on certain characters' eyes and faces that come across as being simple but quite effective. Maybe not KNB quality, but still better than anything Full Moon has made in the past decade or so. The hazy flashback camera effect is less effective, but if that is the worst that can be said about the film, it still gets a strong passing grade.

The inclusion of Ted Raimi, by far the biggest name attached, is interesting in itself. Based on his absence from IMDb during production, and the way he does not interact with the other characters, it would appear he was added after the rest of the film was completed. Possibly his voice was even dubbed over another actor's at some point. Which is not to say this is a bad thing… if you have the opportunity to put Ted Raimi in your film, you put Ted Raimi in your film. (Speaking with Raimi, he confirms that he was the last one hired and did the role as a favor to his friend Austin reading, the director.)

Overall, the film is fairly strong. There are a few shortcomings as one might expect from a lower budgeted horror picture, but the cleverness of the script overcomes this hurdle. "Darkness Rising" is out now from IFC Films.

I love horror movies. I even watch the ones with low ratings because they can usually be fun no matter how poorly done. But this has to be the worst horror movie I've seen in my life. To say the actors can't act would be too high a praise. To say that the direction was horrible would be too high a praise. To say that ... you get the idea. ... and what character in any move has ever sat down with one of the other potential victims for a psychological introspective or philosophical discussion? So why did I continue watching? Partially because I was waiting for it to get better, and partially because I was paralyzed by the horror of how bad a movie actually made it out of the studio's editing room. We need to be able to give negative star ratings for movies like this one!

There is something worse than bad acting and that's bad over acting, which is what you get from the character, Madison from start to finish.

From her constantly over exaggerated crying to her over exaggerated limping, the entire movie is one big wreck. And I'm not exaggerating. Don't waste your time.

Hilarious! A work of comedic genius! You'll laugh out loud! Wait....what? This is supposed to be a horror movie? Oh. Well. Uh....yeah. This is a terrible horror movie, but the awful acting and nonsensical circumstances will probably make you laugh so....it's got that going for it, which is nice. (gunga-gunga-gulanga)