Darkness Reigns

One thing i DESPISE in a "paranormal documentary" movie is when the paranormal happens,and the characters,who have been looking for the paranormal,refuse to believe the paranormal. ALL the cast and crew horrifically does,yet these idiots are shocked every five seconds by demon activity. It's like they stopped believing/forgot what the hell happened as soon as they turned around. Every instance was a new instance of them being shocked that the paranormal was paranormaling-- they were constantly being surprised that the haunted house was haunted. I wanted them all to die for their sheer stupidity alone.

I love horror. I love bad horror. There are even some incredible extremely low budget horror that were made out of someone's basement. This was worse. The first 30 minutes were okay. Casper Van Dien did good and he was enjoyable to see and he was the only reason I even gave 3 stars. Then when the demon started attacking the quality dropped like a lead balloon. Horrible effects, horrible acting, it was painful to watch. Based on review here I gave a shot and I regret it.

The film's premise, although not so original, is a cool way to tell this paranormal horror about a film crew telling a story about a paranormal horror. The writing does a decent job creating this traditional styled nightmare, obvious wholes and notable plausibility not withstanding. Something you come to expect in most found footage stuff. It manages to work as well as balancing on a playground seesaw, some of it does good to come alive and other moments fall dead. Pun intended.

The cast offer a mix bag of believability and bland hollowness, with a few actors staying on point and giving great, believable performances as their characters. Some scenes feel contrived, while other- limited in dialog- flow smoothly and convincingly. Sadly the more dialog heavy, drama rich moments that, at times, fall short tend to be the times we get the much anticipated deaths.

Special effects and creature effects stick with the typical, lesser budget, styles paranormal horror leans on. It works on almost all levels. The ghostie stuff is cool and melds effortlessly when added and do very little to weaken the overall intentions of both Director and FX department. One of the pluses for "Darkness Reigns". Creature concept was nicely done, reminded me of stuff from "Silent Hill" and "Dead Space". I did feel the demon was more Buffy and less horror feature, creating a flat tone to its scenes.

Overall, "Darkness Reigns" was a well done film that had plenty, including Casper Van Dien, going for it, even with the parts that went wrong. It won't appeal to some, but I enjoyed this one. It isn't a big action packed nightmare wonderland, but "Darkness Reigns" does offer a slow burn, paranormal story with some fun effects. Atleast worth everyone checking out once.

This film is an excellent example of what can be accomplished within the genre when you combine quality, talent, and creative restraint. When compared against it's current peers, it truly raises the bar.

Worth watching for Linara Washington's fantastic performance alone.

...but I'm rating it accordingly to what it actually is. It's not a nine compared to The Deer Hunter, obviously, but I reckon it's a fair and appropiate note when comparing this decidedly modest film to other cheap-ish B-Z efforts in the horror genre. Just the meta elements and the obvious self-awareness that permeates the whole thing dignifies it enough, in my eyes, to warrant a high rate from me, if only to try and compensate for all the unfair 1s and 2s it's going to get from people who will judge it from its admittedly lackluster cover art without bothering to actually watch the actual film.

Some unexpectedly good and credible performances from certain cast members too, by the way. That caught me and my wife by surprise. I guess we were expecting something so dreadful -we've had a bit too many of those lately, including a couple of high-profile but very overrated productions- that getting instead something actually watchable from a moderately low-standards point of view was kind of a nice and welcome surprise.

Special kudos to Casper Van Dien for getting the joke and agreeing to play along, by the way. We got a couple of good laughs at his expense, but in a good way. That's what B-moviemaking should be about after all, in my humble opinion, and that's what we got here, so, that's were that nine came from in the end. Keep 'em coming.