Darkroom

My review was written in July 1990 after watching the movie on Quest Entertainment video cassette.

Slasher film "Darkroom" starts well but sputters once the killer's identity has been revealed midstream. Direct-to-video feature is merely okay for target fans.

Best thing here is the opening credits sequence, imaginatively using frames of film to display the title cards as if magnified.

Film proper has a maniacal killer preying on victims in a family setting and taking photographs of same. Incest is the key plot gimmick as a childhood trauma solves the mystery.

As long as the characters and suspects are introduced in opening reels and the killer is confined to stalking footage, the film holds up, but once the cat's out of the bag it becomes boring. Finale has two characters thought to be dead bouncing back for a hokey fight.

No-name cast is game.

Produced by Nico Mastorakis, of Island of Death infamy, but directed by Terrence O'Hara, Darkroom is an obscure late-'80s horror that owes a debt to the Italian giallo genre in in its opening scenes, but which descends more and more into tired American slasher territory as the plot progresses.

The giallo elements are evident in the opening double murder, in which an unseen photographer, who has been spying on a married couple with his high-powered lens, dons yellow rain coat and rubber gloves before picking up a hatchet to kill his subjects. The maniac then sets his sights on the family of pretty teen Janet (Jill Pierce), who has gone to visit her folk at their remote farmhouse. One by one, the family members are picked off, leaving Janet and her mulleted boyfriend Steve (Jeff Arbaugh) to try and stay alive until help arrives.

With pedestrian direction, a weak script featuring dreadful dialogue and obvious red herrings, and most of the deaths occurring off-screen, Darkroom is, for the most part, predictable trash, O'Hara even seeing fit to throw in a gratuitous shower scene (for which I am grateful - it helped to alleviate the tedium). Admittedly, I was impressed by the number of family members who fall victim to the killer, and surprised by the film's flirtation with the taboo subject of incest (although, thinking about Mastorakis's debut movie, I shouldn't have been), but the majority of the film is so by-the-numbers that it all proves rather mundane.

4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for the creative opening credits, which were apparently the work of Mastorakis.

I saw this recently for the first time and what a waste of time.

Generous with a 4 cos of the settings of that of a remote farmhouse, nestled deep in the countryside and the only neighbors is a couple and they disappear very early, making the area even more secluded.

This is a boring slasher with almost zero nudity inspite of a shower scene, clothes changing scene n a sex scene.

Wait, even the sex scene is offscreen.

The guy with the mullet hair looked like a slimmer version of Brian Thompson. He gets injured in an offscreen scene but pops up in the end as a hero.

Ther is absolutely no the character development n we dont feel anything for any victims.

I picked up an old and dusty VHS copy of "Darkroom" at a nearby video store that was shutting down, and I actually even hesitated to spend 0,50€ on it. The synopsis and the cover image on the box – same one as illustrated here on the website – made it look like yet another cheap late 80's erotic thriller with a plot like there are thirteen in a dozen and a handful of tame & tedious soft-core sex sequences. I bought the VHS after all and can't say I regret it very much. Of course it is a predictable and largely inept attempt at making a slasher movie, but hey, at least it contains a few interesting elements and it didn't bore me to death. The plot is relatively simple and straightforward. Janet (an amazingly hot 80's babe) and her boyfriend Steve (a imbecilic mullet-guy who desperately wants to look like Patrick Swayze in "Dirty Dancing") are home at the isolated family farm to spend a weekend together. The farm homes Janet's mother, her two sisters, her grandfather and two cousins. Janet's father as well as her aunt and uncle mysteriously died in a fire several years ago. The only neighbors that live close to the family has been butchered by a maniac during the opening sequences of the film and now Janet's youngest sister Paula is missing. When they discover her mutilated body, they know there's a maniac killer amongst them. The climax of the film and the identity of the killer are perhaps too easy to predict, but "Darkroom" compensates the lack of originality through openly hinting at some clichéd taboo- subjects like incest, family feud and voyeurism. As the title suggests, the killer photographs all of his/her victims before, during and after the process of murdering them. The body count is also quite a lot higher than in other contemporary slasher flicks. And, even though most of the actual killing occurs off-screen, the murders and especially the way they are committed are barbaric and deeply unpleasant. Nice bit of trivia for horror fanatics: "Darkroom" was produced by the Greek writer/director Niko Mastorakis; infamous for the insane and widely banned "Island of Death".

Darkroom is first and the only movie in Terrence O'Hara filmography. I don't really know if it's good or not 'cause this slasher flick is very average but certainly watchable if you have a few beers in your fridge. The plot is pretty basic for a slasher flick - someone is killing people in the forest area. There is no suspense and you will see only one quite good death scene (axe in the back). No gore at all, just some blood here and there. Normally I would say it's not worth to hunt down this little flick (it's actually pretty rare), but for a slasher freaks it definitely should be seen. 'Darkroom'for sure had a potential to be a good stalk and slash flick and the executive producer was Nico Mastorakis most known from his cult classic 'Island of Death' and quite good survival horror 'Zero Boys'. If you find it give it a chance. 5 out of 10.