Darkness Rising

When the legend that is Ted Raimi appeared on screen after the opening credits I was awash with a feeling that I was about to watch something good. Sadly however it was not meant to be and I was presented with this realisation within no more than 15 minutes.

You know those over-convoluted horrors which make the rules up as they go along, make no real sense and are generally pretty damn appalling? This is one of those.

A girl returns to her childhood home with her friends, the home where her mother went crazy and tried to kill her when she was a child. Then spooky things begin to go on around the house and it all gets bad, but more for the viewer for the trio.

Messy unlikeable tripe.

The Good:

Looks the part

The Bad:

Makes no sense

Why do the characters keep repeating themselves?

Things I learnt from this movie:

Nothing, in fact if anything I lost brain cells

Hilarious! A work of comedic genius! You'll laugh out loud! Wait....what? This is supposed to be a horror movie? Oh. Well. Uh....yeah. This is a terrible horror movie, but the awful acting and nonsensical circumstances will probably make you laugh so....it's got that going for it, which is nice. (gunga-gunga-gulanga)

Cannot even convey how horribly lame this production was. Gotta give em credit tho, they managed to find three actors equal to the task put before them. Did I mention, it's really .....bad. Does not contain "spoilers"- not possible, really bad.

I love horror movies. I even watch the ones with low ratings because they can usually be fun no matter how poorly done. But this has to be the worst horror movie I've seen in my life. To say the actors can't act would be too high a praise. To say that the direction was horrible would be too high a praise. To say that ... you get the idea. ... and what character in any move has ever sat down with one of the other potential victims for a psychological introspective or philosophical discussion? So why did I continue watching? Partially because I was waiting for it to get better, and partially because I was paralyzed by the horror of how bad a movie actually made it out of the studio's editing room. We need to be able to give negative star ratings for movies like this one!

Nearly murdered as a child by her mother, a woman (Katrina Law) returns to the (now abandoned) house where her mom went mad.

On its face, the story is relatively simple and minimalistic. A group of three friends break into a house that one of them grew up in, and find that even twenty years later some of the things left behind are intact. Which may seem a bit far-fetched in a world full of urban spelunkers, but just go with it. Underneath this though, is a far more interesting concept.

We are presented the idea that there could be such a thing as architecture-induced homicide. Rather than a house being haunted by spirits, the building itself causes those inside to go insane by the very way it was constructed. Strictly speaking, this is not a new idea. No less a figure than Lovecraft pursued this line of thinking with his "non-Euclidean geometry", and a connection between architecture and evil is suggested in "Ghostbusters II" (itself influenced by Lovecraft). Yet, this remains a rare plot point, and the writer deserves praise merely for attempting it.

The effects are minor, but for the most part well done. There are some decent makeup effects on certain characters' eyes and faces that come across as being simple but quite effective. Maybe not KNB quality, but still better than anything Full Moon has made in the past decade or so. The hazy flashback camera effect is less effective, but if that is the worst that can be said about the film, it still gets a strong passing grade.

The inclusion of Ted Raimi, by far the biggest name attached, is interesting in itself. Based on his absence from IMDb during production, and the way he does not interact with the other characters, it would appear he was added after the rest of the film was completed. Possibly his voice was even dubbed over another actor's at some point. Which is not to say this is a bad thing… if you have the opportunity to put Ted Raimi in your film, you put Ted Raimi in your film. (Speaking with Raimi, he confirms that he was the last one hired and did the role as a favor to his friend Austin reading, the director.)

Overall, the film is fairly strong. There are a few shortcomings as one might expect from a lower budgeted horror picture, but the cleverness of the script overcomes this hurdle. "Darkness Rising" is out now from IFC Films.