Dark House

Awful movie. What's worse, it's so bad you can't make much of a judgment about the cast other than how pretty they are.

The setup is basic haunted house horror. As a child, Claire entered the Darrode House, saw something terrifying, passed out and for years since has been haunted with horrifying nightmares. As a young wannabe actor, she refuses to take medications that cut her off from her feelings. Her acting class runs an exercise of no value other than to give the audience a thumbnail stereotype of each character and then we get the horror-meister who wants to setup a reality/horror type show in the old Darrode House. Claire jumps at the chance to face her fears, buttressed by a crowd of people she knows and talks them into becoming the cast for the new show.

What follows is the most ridiculous, contrived horror-schlock that has nothing to do with the setup, no rising action, just scene after scene of hellish horror with no real context.

This was so bad that I couldn't make it through the whole thing. Not frightening and not even titillating enough to put up with how horrible it is as a motion picture. About halfway through my wife and I finally gave up on it. it's so bad that were I to have gone to see it in a walk-in theater, I would have walked out.

Someone PLEASE stop Darin Scott before he writes and directs again! Or get him some classes in screen writing and directing and a decent mentor?

Solid sound design with good use of surround. The picture looked boring. Very unimaginative story, totally unbelievable and a bit of a mess. Barely acceptable horror film lacking anything engaging. The problem is that they don't understand why people like dark house rides so when they make a film of it they get it wrong.

This was really a bad movie on multiple levels. The lead girl in the movie had no believable emotion to go along with a lifeless plot.The sets looked and felt like a stage, the dialog felt like is was being read from a teleprompter and there was "0" character development. The "clever" twist at the end of the film will only leave you frustrated and agitated for even making through the entire film. If your interested in a movie that is similar to this and has been done a bit better I encourage you to check out "Ghost Machine", which is still available on Netflix Instant. It's sad that the people involved in this actually saw this project as worthwhile and something good.

Shot in just 18 days, Dark House looks, sounds and feels a lot better than the majority of studio horror films I see in any given year. I have a few minor quibbles (some unnecessarily unflattering / ageing lighting on the young women, plus a padded climax that softens the existing impact of a certain revelation) but overall, I've got to say this movie delivers on every expected level. Those representing Good (Claire) and Evil (Mrs. Darrode) are excellent and the actors deserve all due credit, but the standouts in supporting roles are definitely Combs, Whyte, and Cole. Each of them adds depth and texture to characters that could easily come across cardboard. Combs chews scenery, but he does it with rakish, fun-loving panache; Whyte is encumbered with costume, affectation and accoutrement, but his indisputable spirit shines through; and Cole plays the stereotypical gloomy goth girl with droll wit and intelligence.

If you enjoy old-fashioned haunted house flicks with plenty of snarky humor, unabashed boo-scares, and grand guignol gore, step into Dark House.

A troupe of actors hired for a haunted house attraction soon find that they are working in a true house of horror.

Can Jeffrey Combs carry a film? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But it is nice to see that he actually appears as a main character here and not simply for five minutes so they can slap his name on the cover to draw in horror fans. While this may not be one of his best roles, he at least spends a fair amount of time on screen.

Unfortunately, there is nothing new about people going into a haunted house and soon finding out it is really a house full of horrors. I have seen one film already this month based on such a premise -- 2007's "House of Fears". While this may be the slightly better film -- and I stress "may" be -- it scores zero points for originality.