Dark Ride

Saw this recently on a dvd. As a fan of After dark horror fest, this film was on my radar for a long time. Dark Ride is nothing special from a story standpoint. Every classic slasher trope and cliche imaginable was used in this film. The character traits, situations, and dialogue feel formulaic. After the opening murder scene, it takes a hell lottuva time for the thrill ride to jump start. There ain't any good kills except for one which i don't want to spoil. Also some of the scenes r filled with annoying flickering lights. Again like many 80s slasher films, we get to see characters doing stupid things. Splitting up, ample time to run but jus keep on screaming n crying, not taking an effort to fight back. We also get to see a psycho breaking his cuffs n escaping from a mental asylum like a piece of cake, etc. A hot girl wandering n hitchhiking in the middle of nowhere. I think this film seems to have been made in the wrong time period or mayb viewed by me in a totally wrong time.

Dark Ride is nothing but wasted potential Twin girls are murdered on a dark Ride back in the 80's. Flash forward to teen going on a road trip and they find a flyer at a gas station for The dark Ride at Asbury park NJ.

This movie has all the ingredients for a good horror flick.

Great story, decent actors decent gore. Even the set is good but It takes 50 Minutes to get to the kills and it just falls flat It's just long and drawn out. I give it 5 stars for the kills, they are done pretty well.

I just wish that it was idk maybe shorter and to the point. Again I will say so much wasted potential.

This is one boring Dark Ride.

I was extremely excited to see this movie (it was my most anticipated of the Horrorfest lineup) and I'm not too sure what I'm thinking about it at the moment. The plot was very basic and reminded me a lot of your average 80's slasher flicks, but theses are the films I grew up watching, so that's a huge plus. The dialog was far from perfect, but there actually were a few intentionally funny bits that had me and the rest of the theater cracking up. The acting wasn't too awful, but the character of Liz pretty much annoyed the hell out of me the entire time she was on screen. Actually, most of the characters were rude asses and I didn't really care if any of them were going to live or die. The stoner characters were by far the most amusing, though. There were a few scenes of decent gore including a very original beheading that I didn't see coming, and a few scenes built up decent tension and suspense. I also enjoyed the cinematography for the most part. It was very stylized and gave the film it's own unique feel even if the plot and circumstances were clichéd to the max. Also, the killer was very imposing and the mask he wore was really sweet. On the down side, the ending felt incomplete and the unnecessary "twist" was not surprising at all. Almost all of the suspense scenes didn't go anywhere as the killer like to toy with his victims too much and let them get away just in time. This got a little frustrating after a while and I just wanted to see some freakin' action already! Overall, Dark Ride was a much slower paced movie that the preview made it seem, the characters did all of the stupid things that you would expect them to, there was gratuitous nudity and blood (in a few parts) and the killer and setting were very creepy. It was a fun movie, but not one that I would rush out to see by any means of the imagination. I'd give it an above average 6.5/10.

Dark Ride is slick and professionally made but that's the only real good thing about it. For a start, the plot. A group of teens spend the night in a closed "dark ride" as a dare, not realising that a killer is lurking in the ride with them and there is no way out. I mean really, "The Funhouse" did this already about 20 years ago, and saying this is a tribute or something neatly avoids saying it basically just rips the whole thing off.

There's nothing else to say about the plot, so let me say that there a few more things this film doesn't do as well as it should. First of all the so called "dark ride" looks great - but so it should , it seems to be as big an aircraft hanger!! There's no way a real ride in such a run down resort as this one is supposed to be could be so enormous and with seemingly endless rooms devices and contraptions. Most of the time when the teens are wandering about they seem to be in various horror sets that take up whole rooms with no trace of any rail tracks on the floor to carry the ride's cars (it's a ghost train so where are the trains supposed to be going?).

Now sadly another thing that drags the film down is some real hammy acting by the central cast. Fits of screaming and sobbing, running into walls, shivering and blubbering, no histrionic emotion is left unused, and it soon becomes very tiresome. I really didn't care about any of the characters.

What the film does have is some effective, good old fashioned gore, with some surprisingly graphic slaughters. That and the fun of the wacky exhibits of the actual ride itself are the good points in what is otherwise a rather unimpressive movie.

In 1989, in New Jersey, two sisters are killed in a ghost train in the greatest attraction of the Asbury Park, the Dark Ride. The police arrest the serial killer that is sentenced to life in a mental institution; finds fourteen other bodies hidden in the spot and the justice shuts-down the attraction. Fourteen years later, a group of five friends and a hitchhiker decides to visit the amusement park that is offering free lodging in its reopening. Meanwhile, the psychopath escapes from the asylum and while the group is inside the Dark Ride, they are chased and killed by the murderer.

The slasher "Dark Ride" is a boring collection of clichés. Whatever the viewer may expect in a B-movie of the genre, he or she will find in this flick: bad acting, poor screenplay and budget, breasts, screams, the victims splitting from the group and killed one by one, "unexpected" twist etc. In the end, watching this flick is a pure waste of time. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Trem Fantasma" ("Ghost Train")