Dorcha

I stumbled upon this 2021 movie titled "Dorcha" (aka "The Darkness") and I have to say that I hadn't even heard about it, but of course with it being a new horror movie, then of course I sat down to watch it.

And let me just say that writer and director Tharun Mohan did not deliver an impressive movie here. The storyline was just way too much of a scrambled heap of semi-coherent muddle. It was so difficult to get submerged into the storyline. And it didn't really help much that the pacing of the movie was slow and rather uneventful.

The characters in the movie were fairly lackluster and didn't really come off as being anything more than rigid puppets milling about in what tried to be a proper storyline. It was a shame, though, that the actors and actresses weren't given any proper material to work with here.

For this being a horror movie then the movie was just awfully devoid of anything scary or even remotely on the brink of being proper horror. So for an avid horror fan such as myself, then "Dorcha" was a mere stroll in the park. Not a good stroll, mind you, as the trek was just way too bland, pointless and boring.

My rating of "Dorcha" lands on a generous three out of ten stars. This movie was just not worth the time, money or effort. Do yourself a favor and give the movie a wide berth, especially if you enjoy horror movies, because this movie was such a weak addition to the horror genre.

This is supposed to be scary? Whoever wrote the screenplay had no idea what he/she was doing. And the actors were recruited right out of a community college theater guild. Don't waste your time with this mish-mosh "horror" film.

I keep saying it and I'll continue to say it: a recipe for disaster. For the first 40 minutes it zoned me out so hard I felt like my mind had been erased. This is supposed to be horror, yet I felt like I was watching a time piece love story movie. I've seen better acting in a pre school play. The only thing this was good for was making me sleepy.

This is a bad movie. A very bad movie.

I sat down to watch this late at night turned out all the lights set up the optimum atmosphere for watching a scary movie.

Starts out with some flashback to perhaps 100 years ago. At that time people were afraid of being buried alive and so they had a string running from the coffin up to the surface attached to a bell. Presumably if you woke up and found yourself in the coffin you could pull the string and ring the bell and summon help. Call it the 1800 version of being a prepper.

Anyway for whatever reason guy feels that grandma has been improperly buried and he's digging her up and the implication is that Grandma leaps from the coffin and attacks him.

The one character screams because it's supposed to be scary. But I don't know how to describe this other than to say that the scene was utterly and completely not scary. Maybe it's the timing maybe it's the music maybe it's the acting or the complete lack thereof. But there was absolutely no suspense no anticipation and no scare.

Fade to Black roll the opening.

It's now present day and husband and wife are going to vacation in some cottage or whatever. The details aren't important but for whatever reason they feel like they should tell you all about it anyway. None of this makes me feel the least bit scared. Husband is constantly apologizing that he has to work. Wife does not appreciate husbands sacrifices. So thus far the husband apologizes a lot and the wife is ungrateful. And they both talk endlessly about the history of the cottage whatever.

So we're about 5 minutes into the movie now and neither of the characters that I've seen seem at all interesting to me. I don't like these people.

The couple go to bed. Quick cut. Wife wakes up to find husband is working on some proposal for work. He again apologizes to her for not having enough water beside the bed for her. Every single time that husband has had dialogue he's apologized. I hope the Monster eats this guy. Wife smiles, she does that all the time, almost in a Stepford fashion. And she goes to the kitchen to get herself a glass of water.

Now they are in this old Cottage in the middle of nowhere. While I'm watching this I can literally hear half dozen sounds from my own house. The refrigerator coming on, the hot water heater, the wind is making the attic rattle a little bit. Every house makes random noises.

Our Starlet Susie hears a noise. And she jumps like it's the most terrifying thing in the world. They're in a strange house and they don't know any of the sounds but when she goes to the kitchen she hears a noise and she almost loses it. Doesn't seem plausible to me. Frankly the chick seems a tad hysterical if she's going to melt down every time she hears a random noise and a strange house.

Then she looks at the kitchen window and sees a woman walking outside. Not a ghost or a headless horseman or Jason Voorhees, just a regular woman.

And suddenly Susie Starlet decides that she's Fay Ray and screams at the top of her lungs while dropping the water pitcher.

I can't begin to tell you the number of times I have looked outside a window and seen a person walking. People do that you know. They walk. They walk the dog they walk to get groceries they take out the garbage. There's a million reasons why a person might be walking outside. And never in my life if I've been Disturbed by the sight of a neighbor walking where I might reasonably expect them to be.

But Susie Starlet screams her lungs out, like a complete hysterical idiot.

Now here's what I think was going on. I think the writer of this had seen other horror movies and is familiar with the concept of the flashback. So he decides to open this film with a flashback. But he knows nothing about building suspense or character development or pretty much anything.

So he makes the flashback scene in An utterly lifeless fashion.

And then when he makes the cottage scene he's decided that Susie should be frightened by something outside. And maybe he even has an image in his head as to how this will go. But he has no Talent whatsoever for conveying what's in his head on to the page in such a fashion that it shows us what he's thinking and feeling. Clearly he feels that Susie should be terrified. But he doesn't show us why. All he showed us is that her husband apologizes a lot for working and she freaks out for no discernible reason.

He has made two unlikable characters, neither of which the audience can identify with. He is utterly failed to create any real sense of tension or unease. And he hasn't the slightest clue how to create a jump scare.

And I look at my watch and we're only 7 minutes and 37 seconds into the movie.

I'm not going to live forever. I only have a limited time on this Earth. And there's so much to see and so much to do.

I am not wasting another second of my precious existence on this train wreck of a movie. I don't care if it wins an Academy Award I'm not watching another second. Spoiler. It's not winning any awards.

Go find somebody that you love and give them a hug. Take your kid out for a milkshake. Build a shed in your backyard. Paint the living room. Do anything other than wasting your ever so precious existence on this bit of nothing.

That's it I stopped watching after 7 minutes and 37 seconds. I hope you this review has spared you wasting even that much time.

Well the cover looked interesting and intriguing - mainly because of the drop dead gorgeous Charlize Theron clone Amelia Eve on the front but sadly this is where the excitement ends.

Very amateurish production with annoying sound effects; violin arpeggios to highlight the usual scary moments (of which there are zero), some really terrible acting from nearly all the cast with the exception of Amelia who did her best with a woeful and tedious script that has nothing new to add to the genre and of course we have the usual cliched ending in the car - deary, deary me, when are we going to see some originality in British ghost / horror stories.

I always review a film fairly, based on its budgetary constraints, along with the acting etc but this one is hard going and sadly a lacklustre 3 hatchets on the scary scale for me!