Dark Walker

Think the title is "Darkwalker" (one word), and was "Hobbs Grove: the Movie." It's not worth seeing under any title. Non-acting actors (but the male romantic lead and the woman who plays one of the owners aren't bad); silly demon suit (you can see the head of the guy inside through his mask); boring, nitwit script (including a training speech for the employees at the park); no sense to it anywhere (why is the demon killing people, and why only people who work at the park?); funny commentary by the producer and the director, as if they had made "The Godfather" ("we were so lucky to get this cast"; "this is a beautiful-looking film").

Only reason for this review is to plug Hobbs Grove, the setting of the movie, which has the best haunted house (and the best haunted wood) I've ever been to, and I've been to a few. It looks tacky in the film, as those things always do, but seen in person it's scary and imaginative and atmospheric. Skip "HG: the Movie," but if you're in California around Halloween, check out "HG: the Cool Spook House."

Don't buy a movie because it has a cool looking monster on the cover. My friend learned that lesson a little too late. Darkwalker reminds me quite a bit of Scarecrow (another low-budget flick) in that it had a very cool creature design and that's where the good news ends. The Darkwalker looks like the Creeper and Swamp Thing's love child. The film is more funny than horrific. The killings also get repetitive. The creature stalks his victims and rushes them in POV mode, cut to wall, and splat with a gallon of blood. This happens a couple of times. It does feature the biggest damn sheriff I've ever seen though who whips the creature in hand-to-hand combat. That was worth my friend's twelve dollars just to see that.

DARKWALKER is an average Teen Slasher film. Unfortunately being "average" as it relates to direct-to-video Teen Slashers does not make it "average" in quality. The film is somewhat entertaining in a dull, mindless, repetitive way. Even for someone like myself, who indulges in these type of movies, and gives every break imaginable, there's not enough meat (much less sense) here to justify 90 minutes of running time.

As a mindless type of film, I suppose it's good enough. It's certainly nothing extraordinary (meaning the two perfect "10" grade for this film is not to be believed), but it is not entirely bad.

Fun at places, but ultimately too generic, even for a genre of films built on a foundation of being generic.

4 out of 10

(go to www.nixflix.com for a more detailed review of the film)

but then i like low budget horror.

when a movie opens with a scene that looks like it's set in a school's "fall festival" display (give us back halloween, geeze) you know you are in for a treat.

the plot is not very well explained, the monster looks like a cross between swamp thing and the toxic avenger and the acting is mediocre to poor but i still managed to not only stick with it, but enjoy it right up to the end.

what is it with movies these days and endings? is it a totally lost art?

oh, and another thing, the death loving "goth" girl who drips bile and morbid one-liners? she needs to be a horror standby returned to the props closet, it is so old.

I'm sure the budget was very low, but this was a waste of film. The photography is awful and the actors are worse. The story is very weak and it lacks rhythm. The sex scenes which are necessary in a "good" low budget horror movie are completely missing. It could have been much MUCH better made...