Left in Darkness

Celia (Monica Keena of "Freddy vs. Jason") has always felt lots of guilt over the fact that her mother died giving birth to her. Now, as a young adult, she's mourning the recent death of her grandfather Joe (the legendary Tim Thomerson of the "Trancers" series), who raised her after her worthless father took a powder. She celebrates her 21st birthday by going to a wild frat party where she has the worst, and final, night of her life: she is drugged, raped, and dies of an overdose.

Now stuck in some kind of netherworld, she has to navigate her surroundings, not sure if she should follow the advice of her guardian angel Donovan (David Anders of 'Alias'), who saved her life as a child. While she tries to figure out how to get to Heaven, she must avoid beings known as "soul eaters".

This well-intentioned but resolutely average horror movie does subvert conventions in some ways (it's not really about righting wrongs committed in real life). But it spends too much time laying on the exposition and the ground rules (which is basically Donovans' job). Occasionally, there are some interesting visuals, and director Steven R. Monroe ("It Waits", "I Spit on Your Grave" 1 and 2, "The Exorcism of Molly Hartley") gives it a reasonable amount of atmosphere and pace. It gets most of its mileage from the sincere lead performance by Keena, and from the participation of ever-reliable Thomerson. Anders is fairly amusing in his role; Jessica Stroup ("The Hills Have Eyes II"), Chris Engen ('The Young and the Restless'), and Travis Van Winkle ("Friday the 13th" '09) co-star. Former "Bad Seed" Patty McCormack has a cameo as Celias' grandmother. And that's co-producer Stephen J. Cannells' daughter Chelsea as Tawnia.

Overall, this viewer would have to say that while he has seen worse than this, he's also seen better.

Five out of 10.

On the twentieth-first birthday of Celia (Monica Keena), her friend Justine (Jessica Stroup) invites her to go to a party in a fraternity. Celia is still grieving the death of her beloved grandfather Joe (Tim Thomerson), who has recently died, and blames herself for the death of her mother in her delivery. In the party, she is drugged and gang raped; then she has an OD and dies alone in a bathroom. Out of the blue, she finds alone in the fraternity house and she is lured and attacked by Joe. However, her guardian angel Donovan (David Anders), who saved her life when she was a girl, explains the rules to keep the protection of her sanctuary and survive the massive attack of soul eaters. Sooner Celia finds that she is in a sort of purgatory and distrusts Donovan; further, she does not know who is telling the truth and how to reach Heaven.

"Left in the Darkness" has an interesting and original premise but there are to many rules to be followed in the purgatory where the lead actress spends two hours trying to discover who is really helping her and finding the way to the paradise. Monica Keena and David Anders have good performances in the lead roles. I have recently seen a movie with Jessica Stroup, but unfortunately her character has a minor but important participation. This film was released in Brazil directly on DVD by Flashstar Distributor and deserves to be watched at least once. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Terror na Escuridão" ("Terror in the Darkness")

I was drawn to this film by it's interesting premise. Of course, as a straight to video film I wasn't really expecting much even though I hoped for the best. The film sat somewhere in the middle for me. It was enjoyable and somewhat interesting, but I couldn't help but feel it had much more potential than it displayed. Perhaps on a higher budget with a better script, we could have seen something really special. When the movie was over, I shrugged... I wasn't overly satisfied, yet not disappointed. But as far as straight to video films go, this one is definitely in the upper class.

And what was up with Monica Keena's lips?

i thought this film was actually quite good. i watched it on 'zone horror', which usually airs low budget gore-fests (not a bad thing, i love em), so i was surprised to find this film which contained minimal guts, a couple of scares and was quite intelligent. i thought it had original ideas, in a genre which has spawned film after film of teen horror flicks which follow the same pattern over and over. i found the soul takers creepy, without being jump-behind-the-couch-pray-for-your-life scary. i did, however, guess the end ALL along, but I've spent my life watching this sort of thing, so i guess 99.9% of anything i watch.

if your the sort of person who likes a good scare, without all the gore and jumps most films have, i'd recommend this one. and in fact, as a person who DOES like all the gore and the scares, i still liked it.

Pretty 21-year-old Celia (Monica Keena, who is very good at appearing traumatized, confused and panicked) goes to a frat party where a creep uses a date-rape drug on her. She dies from an overdose and awakens in a ghostly parallel world which, in spite of a lot of exposition, never gets as much of an explanation as it needs. She can see what's happening in the "real" world in mirrors and other reflective surfaces, but she can't figure out the complicated rules for getting into heaven, especially with all the demon-zombie types chasing her around. She is advised by a smug, inscrutable guy named Donovan (David Anders, who is perfect in the role) who claims to be the ghost who has been invisibly protecting her since childhood, formerly a child himself. Which begs the question: how and why would a person who died at age 8 grow into an adult after death? Celia's grandpa (the great Tim Thomerson) keeps popping in and out, sometimes as his kindly old self and sometimes as a snarling gray-faced corpse. In a real creative lowpoint, the ghoulies are called "soul eaters". This movie has a great professional look but is too complicated for its own good and violates its own internal logic on several occasions. If the dead "can't affect the living", as we're told, then how was the Donovan character able to pick Celia up and lift her out of the way of a speeding car when she was alive? And how is Donovan able to physically touch Celia right after he explains that nobody in the ghost dimension can touch her without her touching them first? Why didn't Donovan od something to prevent her being raped and murdered in the first place? These and other inconsistencies will probably distract you from the confused plot, but at least there's plenty of action and danger to propel things along. Swear words are used awkwardly in places that might cause unwanted laughter. The ending seems to imply that the story's most evil character has adopted a new identity in preparation for a future attempt on the soul of Celia's bimbo roommate, but this point isn't made clear. In fact, a lot of points aren't made clear. What was the bit about Celia's father thrown in there for? Why did he leave her, what was the nature of his briefly mentioned "sickness", and why did the writers think it was worth bothering with to have him make a quick appearance in the afterlife? Even with the "caught between life and death" theme, the movie doesn't have the intentional dreamlike feel of a story left deliberately illogical and surreal in the manner of CARNIVAL OF SOULS or JACOB'S LADDER; instead, it plays out like a script full of loose ends, cluttered with unhelpful details. Maybe viewers were meant to see it as the heroine's dream or delusion, rather than anything really happening in an actual place. The afterlife depicted in the BEETLEJUICE movies is more coherent than the one seen here. Though sloppy and admittedly no classic, LEFT IN DARKNESS is entertaining enough to watch and is certainly not among the worst horror efforts you've seen. Or maybe I should say it's not among the worst I've seen.