Dark Floors

It has been a while since I've rated a movie and Dark Floors isn't exactly the best movie to make my comeback on.

Dark Floors starts as a concerned father tries to get his daughters medical problems diagnosed. He isn't satisfied with them not curing her within the first day of testing so he decides to take her out of the hospital w/o their knowing. Unfortunately the elevator takes them to a strange evil hospital where they must try and survive.

Man this does have some coolness as it really reminds me of another version of Silent Hill where we see the real world and the twisted dream world. The story is fairly interesting at first but unfortunately it gets boring quickly as the sit for periods and do pretty much nothing...I mean really there is a part where they spend nearly five minutes attacking a wall. The movie is part interesting but it can be worse as far as horror movies go.

If you have the time and attention this is an fair watch...

What do you call a horror story without horror and story?

This is the most irritating thing about the film: I get the feeling the writers never really decided what's actually going on in the film! It's a different thing to know it, give hints for the audience and not completely reveal it, but here, you get the feeling the screenwriters don't know it, characters in the film do not know it and audience sees that no one knows! (Remember "Cube"? Even that film knew more about itself.)

I've consumed a lot of 80's horror / gore films and this movie certainly has its roots deep in those films. But a lot of important things are missing. We really know nothing about the characters. They keep repeating empty lines over and over again. The story isn't really developing - it never goes anywhere. B-acting is OK in this type of horror films, but there's not much to act in the script. We don't care about the characters. There's nothing to remember about them. There's not even cheesy humor or unnecessary sex. And most importantly - no thrills, no chills.

You only get some commonly used elements of the horror film genre. They show the Lordi monsters one by one but their characters don't really contribute anything for the story.

I honestly believe that this amount of story, character development and atmosphere could be achieved with minimal amount of crew and equipment. Oh yeah, film makers used to do that - and more - some 20 years ago! I felt the shared embarrassment of the audience as the film ended. Too bad really.

Lordi was a major hype and revelation in 2007 because they won the Eurovision Song Contest with a (not-so-heavy) metal song called "Hard Rock Hallelujah" and appeared on stage dressed like hideous monsters. But, let's face it, their victory most likely had very little to do with their great musical talents. The Eurovision contest gradually turned into one big political circus over the years and Lordi probably just won because their song finally brought a little change and – even more importantly - because their whole act sort of ingeniously spoofed the whole annual event. The absolute last thing Lordi's first (and hopefully last) horror film brings is change and ingenuity. "Dark Floors", based on an idea of the lead singer and starring the rest of the band in supportive roles, is a truly unimaginative and hopeless accumulation of clichés. The immense budget ("Dark Floors" supposedly is the most expensive Finnish film ever) definitely assures greatly macabre set pieces and impressive make-up art, but what's the point where there's no story that is worth telling? The film takes is set in a busy hospital where a bunch of people, among them a father and his young daughter with an unidentifiable illness, become trapped in the elevator during a power breakdown. When the doors open again, the floors are empty and it looks as if the hospital lies abandoned since many years already. Trying to reach the exit, the group stumbles upon several morbid and inexplicable obstacles, like eyeless corpses, screaming ghosts and Heavy Metal monsters emerging from the floors. The only three points I'm handing out to "Dark Floors" are exclusively intended for the scenery and the adequate tension building during the first half of the film. For as long as the sinister events don't require an explanation, the atmosphere is quite creepy, but as soon as you realize the explanation will a) be very stupid or b) never come, the wholesome just collapses like an unstable house of cards. Lordi's costumes never really were scary to begin with (except maybe to traditional Eurovision fans) and, in combination with a story more reminiscent to Asian ghost-horror, they just look downright pathetic and misfit. With all the national myths and truly unique exterior filming locations, I personally always presumed Finland – The Land of a Thousand Lakes – would be the ideal breeding ground for potentially horrific horror tales, but I guess that's another disillusion on my account.

Well, the movie itself, the place and the atmosphere did actually have the potential to be more successful and enjoyable. But the way things happened during the story made it a lil bit disappointing.

While in the hospital for a tomography of the brain of his autistic daughter Sarah (Skye Bennett), Ben (Noah Huntley) becomes upset when there is a power failure. He decides to leave the hospital with Sarah, while the nurse Emily (Dominique McElligott) tries to convince him to leave Sarah for further treatment. They get the elevator with three other passengers, and suddenly the elevator stops; when the door opens, people has vanished from the hospital, the environment is creepy and they are chased by devilish monsters. They find that they are trapped in the hospital, and the creatures seem to be hunting Sarah.

"Dark Floors" is a bizarre and weird trip to a disturbed mind of an autistic girl. The dark story is intriguing and has a promising beginning, but the conclusion is disappointing. The performance of Skye Bennett, the eerie atmosphere and the special effects are the plus of this movie; Emily is a nice character well performed by Dominique McElligott; however, it is impossible to feel any empathy for the lead and important character performed by Noah Huntley. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Alma Diabólica" ("Devilish Soul")