The Black Room

I am a huge fan of cinema and film . I enjoy a variety of Genre's and Horror is in my top three. I've seen many hundreds of Horror titles over the past 25 years and have had access to movie viewing via many resources. These resources include, owning 700+ DVD's, having every pay per view channel available as well as a fire stick which I can, essentially, view any film ever made.

I write the above caveat only to illustrate that I have sufficient film knowledge and experience to determine what makes a Film "good, bad, worth watching, totally avoiding etc). Now, on to "The Black Room".... Fellow Film Buffs, do yourself a Giant favor and steer clear of this "from the moment the score starts and screen lights up" waste of time.

In a nutshell, IMO, any Horror film that wants to be taken seriously does not use cheesy single instrument (multi instrument keyboard) effects to set the tone for a suspenseful background and score to scene elements which sound more like something a 9 yr. old banged out on his/her "music maker app" on their laptop

3 minutes into this film I sensed I was in for a bad ride, and boy was I right! You would think the seemingly never ending typecast Lin Shaye's presence would at least lend some credibility to this flick....Nope! The beautiful Natasha Henstridge and (not to be mistaken for Lukas Haas) Lukas Hassle add nothing more then eye candy to this flop.

The premise and plot are unoriginal and have been used 100's of times over. The fact that the Director uses a sexual element to drive the "scare" scenes add up to nothing more then a poor attempt at tension, without good results, and are silly. The sexual assaults throughout, driving fear, obviously two primordial instincts humans have had since the beginning of humanity sounds like a very philosophical idea, but, 1+1 don't add up to 2 in this mess.

I refuse to waste more time on going through the plot and the cheesy way it continuously fails to create any fear, tension, elevated pulse rate?, etc. I can only say, it seems Horror is the genre more films are made about year after year and its clear its increasingly harder to find a film with originality in any way shape or form. I'm not saying there are no good Horror films made anymore. I'm saying, it's tough to find a new release worth your 80-110 minutes on average. The Black room is no different. In fact, it's one of the more lower end "B" movies I've seen in a long while with a decent cast.

Horror fans all over, go get a root canal or slam your hand in a car door, it's less painful then this film.

This is simply a gawd awful film. There's not a believable character to be found, let alone empathize with. Generally I'm one to watch a movie to it's end once I've started it and this one was no exception. It was a complete 94 minute waste of time. The plot is hardly original but it could have (and has been) done much, much better than it is here. I've loved the horror genre ever since watching Bela Lugosi in Dracula as a kid many many years ago. There is absolutely no horror, or even a good fright, in this flick. How it's gotten any rating on here higher than a 2 is beyond me.

I watched about close to an hour of this trash and just couldn't watch it any more. I heard it was so bad it's good, and I have watched a fair few of the b movies they live up to that standard sadly this one didn't. The acting was terrible I have no idea if it that was intentional or not given the talents from the cast my guess is bad direction. There was no straight forward plot to keep you intrigued , a simple plot line to follow would have made a difference, all I know is a couple bought a house without inspecting it weird things happen for no reason that's about it. I heard it was supposed to be a parody or comedic elements , there was nothing funny at all apart from the bad acting. Dont go by the 9s and 10s of this, it is so bad it is actually bad.

I have no idea why this is rated so high. I actually had to look it up here to see if it was supposed to be a horror movie or comedy. It is like some trash movie filmed in the 80s. Plenty of nudity though if you are into that sort of thing. It really reminded me of the first Hellraiser. That movie was scary when it came out but if you watch it now it's laughable. At least it had a storyline worth following.

Married couple Paul and Jennifer (Lukas Hassle and Natasha Henstridge) move into their dream home blissfully unaware that there is an incubus (a horny devil in more ways than one) trapped in the basement. When Paul accidentally frees the demon, he becomes possessed by the evil creature, which proceeds to seduce and kill those who cross its path.

The Black Room begins two years earlier with Miss Black (Lin Shaye) woken in the night by the incubus, the monster somehow escaping its prison in the form of smoke (logic is not this film's strong point). While Miss Black screams at the monster, the invisible incubus enters the room where sexy granddaughter Dawn (Alex Rinehart) is sleeping, peels the duvet off her bed, removes her nightie, fondles her nipples, whips off her panties and gives her an orgasm. It's that kind of film.

Dawn is then lured into the basement, where she is groped by slimy demonic hands before being roasted by a fiery blast from the furnace. So far, so tawdry and trashy.

And so it continues, as Paul and Jennifer take ownership of the property, both keen to have sex as soon as possible in their new home, but unable to find the right time. The demon finds a way to keep them both happy, however, using its powers to satisfy Jennifer in the bath and give Paul head while he relaxes in bed.

The horror begins after Paul unwittingly releases the incubus, and becomes possessed, with several people meeting sticky fates: electrician Oscar is dragged into the 'black room', leaving behind his severed fingers; Jennifer's goth sister Karen (Augie Duke) has her mouth torn open by the rapey incubus's schlong; plumber Leo has his head crushed in a washing machine door by the undead Karen; and housewarming guests Howard (Caleb Scott) and Stacy (Dominique Swain) wind up in the basement as demon food.

Eventually, Jennifer realises the truth and attempts to rid her husband of the incubus (using a metal disc with a glowing 'eye') before the creature can be reborn, none of which makes much sense. Despite a reasonable cast (Henstridge, Swain, and Shaye are deserving of much better), the film amounts to little more than some cheap titillation, a touch of not-very-impressive gore, and lots of really bad visual effects.

3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for Henstridge making her washing machine blow up. Way to go!