Black Dahlia

I believe that this is the worst movie I've ever seen.... and I sat through "Atomic Train". At least that has Mena Suvari in it, so I can watch it with the sound off. "Black Dahlia" had not a single virtue. No humor. No plot. No acting. No Irony. There's not a single interesting, entertaining or amusing thing about this movie. I wanted really badly to walk out, but my movie mate drove and insisted on staying. I wanted to stay in the theater watching this schlock only slightly more than I wanted to risk hypothermia. It was a tough choice; watch "Black Dahlia" or die. Death would have been only slightly worse. This movie just plain sucked. It wasn't even interesting by accident. 'Nuff said. This movie just sucked. Addendum: Okay, some of the the music was good.

Ulli Lommel's latest is a blatant attempt to cash in on Brian DePalma's BLACK DAHLIA. (But why, since that bombed??) This shot-on-video-with-non-actors disgrace is the kind of amateurish junk that gives all horror films a bad name. And we all know there are many good ones. This is not even a good "gore" film, even though there are plenty of severed limbs and lots of squishing blood; H.G. Lewis's films of the 60's were better than this, and that's saying a lot because Lewis' films are horrendous. But at least Lewis can say he was an innovator of sorts. Lommel's (so-called) films get worse with each outing.

This DAHLIA is boring, repetitious, pretentious and laughable. Even the "artsy" video effects can't hide just how junky and moronic this rip-off is.

Buyers and renters beware!!

We were in a hurry at the video store, and thought this was the other Black Dahlia movie (with Josh Hartnett). Shame on us! The production values of a high-school movie made by teenagers who would rather be doing something else HELP to make this the worst movie ever made. The plot is worse than a bad (not that there's any other kind) porn movie, with the same things happening over and over again -- and not in a "Groundhog Day" kind of way. The soundtrack was the best part of the movie, but can't make up for the rest of the waste of the 20 minutes it took us to watch this movie with fast-forwarding through the massively graphic violence. I've read most of the books about the Black Dahlia and figured the movie would play fast and loose with the facts. I shouldn't have worried about that. Using the device of The Black Dahlia didn't get in their way for a minute. I'm sure the producers counted on people making the mistake we did. DON'T rent this movie.

It's pretty obvious that Lionsgate only released Ulli Lommel's "Black Dahlia" so that they could cash in on Brian De Palma's "The Black Dahlia" (much like other recent sound alike ripoffs "War of the Planets", "When a Killer Calls", and "Flight 93"). Like many of those, this hit DVD before the big movie it imitates in the preemptive rip-off tradition started by Roger Corman. In short, people are supposed to see this DVD on the shelf and mistake it for the De Palma movie. Working at a video store I have encountered the intentional confusion these ripoffs create time and time again.

Anyway, let's talk about the movie already. Rather than re-telling the story of the actual Black Dahlia murder there is simply a brief prologue about it complete with a black and white filter and fake film grain over what is obviously low grade video footage. Then the movie drops us in LA of the 21st century (now) where two plain clothes cops make a drug bust. These are supposed to be our heroes. Then we meet the Satan worshiping killers who lure girls to auditions to play the Black Dahlia and then get murdered. In between looking at bodies and drinking with his partner, the younger drug cop, the rookie whose name I can't remember, looks up the original 40s murder online and dreams about it. That's pretty much it.

The killers kill in very long slow boring scenes before leaving body parts for the police. The police investigate, the killers kill some more ad infinitum. The acting sucks all around. All the murder scenes are very slow and boring and each killing is nearly identical the the last. There's also a lot of unnecessary after effects like rewinding and white flashes. Shots of a graveyard and the 40s reenactment are cut into weird places too. Footage is re-used so often I got to thinking they probably only shot an hour of video before beefing it up to 80 minutes in the editing room (and the credits are already rolling by 78 minutes).

Apart from those confused into thinking it's something else, who is this movie really for? It's not for mystery fans because everything is spelled out to the point where you wonder why the police haven't solved it. It's not for action fans because the action is rare and pathetic. It could only be for very patient low-brow perverts and ultra-low-brow gore hounds, and those people could easily find better somewhere else. I've been renting straight to video crap all year and this is the worst movie I've found so far. For your own sake, stay far away.

At the store I was fooled that this was the studio version, but don't be fooled, this is the biggest pile of feces I've ever seen, and I only watched the first 15 minutes. I swear that if I watched any more my eyes would have exploded and my ears would melt from shear disgust. This movie was made in about a week in order to steal some thunder from the "real" movie. This is like Snakes on a Train, they change the title slightly and let the money roll in, but don't let these freaks get any money. They wasted your money and however long you sat to watch this crap. From what I saw, they special effects were created via ketchup bottles, the plot was written by a eight year old who was way to interested in boobies and blood, and the actors are people that probably needed the work so bad they would be willing to be paid minimum wage. Period.