Darkside Witches

After watching the movie, My first impression was like "wow, I need more like this". This is A pure horror movie. And because I am A huge fan of horror movie, I really enjoyed the movie. It's got all those good effects, lots of blood and the soundtracks were so good that it felt like I was in the movie. It's A combination of horror, craziness, shocking, action as well as some fun. The graphics was too good. And there are certain surprises by which I was really entertained. I have to say I really liked the witches, vampires within the movie. It really reminded me of A game "The Evil Within". It has a vintage taste like an old Hammer film mixed up with some of the best Italian genre pearl from Lucio Fulci or Mario Bava with a soft porn touch and CGI boost. This is one of the best indie horror movies that I have watched lately and I can bet that if you like mad stuff you wanna watch this one.

This movie wasn't just beyond stupid, it was original and creepy!

I don't know what problem you have "Lokisgodhi", this site is just full of stupid trolls that think to be clever. I watched this film twice, once alone and once with some friends. It's fun and I think really original, instant cult classic to my eyes.

As an old school Italian horror fan what you can see in this film is the passion the filmmakers put inside this production. CGI is way beyond average indie production, and the plot and editing just brilliant. I think the director has a knack to make you feel uncomfortable and deceive the spectator. Character may seem superficial and sketchy but at they manage to sustain the weird plot to end.

All in all a cool flick to watch that keeps you excited for 90 min and more. Really hope they make a sequel out of it.

If you love unusual B horror films, Italian horror especially, you might like this movie. It has a retro 80's soundtrack that is quite good and an interesting mix of sex, Satan worship, witchcraft & gore. I've seen comparisons made to old Hanmer movies...that's a reach IMO. Hammer movies were much better than this, almost all of them were but I know what the commentator was trying to get across. This movie is a retro attempt at the sort of B horror movies made in the late 70's & throughout the 80's in Italy & Spain. My wife quit on it 20min into it, I watched it twice back to back so there you go. I think it's destined to be a B horror cult classic myself.

I was surprised to see anything coming from Italy these days and oh well, I was very disappointed to see how distasteful this film is. Many B- movies of the 60's and 70's were made with a sense of style and with a heart. Most of them didn't feature pornographic nudity and are now pretty much innocent by today's standards. Still they're not movies for the whole family.

The makers of this film surely didn't think twice about what kind of nudity in a film is acceptable if they're making a serious film. It's really an insult to say that this is a homage to the old B- flicks. The old movies were made professionally, they had professional writers, even professional directors, professional actors, professional crew. Many even had high production values of that day and still look stunning and many films were Italian. And when you compare to this, 2 million dollars doesn't appear to be money well spent if that was the budget.

I can't understand why the makers obviously wanted to push the boundaries in this day and age when just about anything is acceptable in a film. This movie even makes contemporary Argento films look so much better.

First the story, it is a cool throwback to more Gothic, dark fantasy horror revolving around witches, persecution and revenge. You could place this situation in any European and Colonial setting and the story is the same. Females burned for being witches, town cursed, and wah-lah! Witches survive to get their vengeance. I actually love these kinds of films involving the occult and witches. The classic, old world concept of witches that may be insensitive to the modern day witch/Wiccan, but true to our ancient past's view of the hag/crone/wicked maiden.

Gerard Diefenthal manages to give the story some lift, creating iconic character types, Gothic settings, and plenty of drama mixed with gore. The film does move almost mirror-image to what I image the storyboard concept looked like. The transitions are blunt, quick changing and move the story quickly from moment to moment much like graphic novel/animation adaptations tend to do. For example one moment there is a woman in the kitchen preparing and in the next instant the scene transitions to her handing some homeless guy soup or something to eat with a wicked grin. The dialog is not over- burdening to the story, only crucial conversations that give the plot and sinister plans the witches have for the town, other characters idle chatter, or short scenes with just a couple of sentences. It allows for the action and suggested drama tell a lot of the story instead of some long speech like dialog delivered laboriously by the cast. It is overdubbed so be warned.

Now for me the nail in the coffin for this film isn't the overdubbed vs. subtitle choice, it is the CGI choices that were made to create the supernatural, witchy-ness side of the film. It is very low grade stuff, closer to Syfy on a dime. Think "Witchville". It is almost comical when those scenes take over the story. It all really shreds "Darkside Witches" momentum, and potential for being one of the modern day cult classics - you know the ones that are so bad they are good. Well the CGI here is just really bad and sad. That said, there are some really awesome, gory moments that use splattergore styled practical effects that scream Italian giallo! Really nice blood drenched moments. And the nudity is almost on soft-core porn level.

All this is why I had to watch the film a few times. At first I thought-"What is this crap?", then the practical effects moments kicked in and I was like "Heck yeah!". Overall "Darkside Witches" is not gonna go over well for most horror fans, I mean this film is really gonna aim at a small select group of people who like the Syfy, CGI saturated stuff that uses gaming level computer effects. I am truly conflicted. Not because I am split on the film. I am conflicted because I liked the story, I love films about witches, and the gore and horror here, when practical choices are made, are awesome! Yet the overdubbed voices are so hokey and kill the seriousness of the dialog and scenes that it is troublesome. The CGI is, in all honesty, crap! And the transitions and smoothness of the story just moves to choppy and hurried to allow for any real connection with the characters.