Casa Escura

Regardless of what I think of writer/director Victor Salva as a person, I must admit that I really like most of his movies! Fact remains that Salva knows what frightens people. He made some unforgivable mistakes in the past, but really all the felonies that brought him in the news are not my business. My only interest goes out to his directing skills and I can safely say he's one of the few directors out there that approach the horror genre with the right attitude. "Clownhouse" is a very good (and underrated) 80s horror classic, "Nature of the Beast" is vintage 90s thriller material and I do most definitely rank "Jeepers Creepers" (parts I and II) among the best and most genuinely unsettling genre outings of the new millennium. Yes, seriously! I've been waiting for the third film in the series to get released for years now, but production apparently still hasn't started yet! Salva's name hence was my sole motivation to seek out "Dark House", which otherwise just looks like a passable and thirteen-in-dozen backwoods horror movie. This isn't Salva's best work by far, but it definitely still contains a handful of good story ideas, creative plot twists, macabre set pieces and grisly make-up effects. 23-year-old Nick Di Santo is blessed – or burdened – with the supernatural gift of being able to see other people's deaths when he touches them. Nick is also searching for the truth regarding his past, particularly who his father is and where do the recurring nightmares originate from. A traumatic visit to his mother in the asylum teaches Nick that he, in fact, owns a mysterious old house that has vanished in a flood. When he and his friends (including his 8-month-pregnant girlfriend) eventually discover the house, its entrance is blocked by a creepy hermit and an army of axe-wielding and dreadlocked monstrosities… Welcome home, Nick! There are quite a few plot aspects that initially seem strange and rather silly, like the recurring strange voice coming from basements through ventilation holes and frequent references towards Biblical myths as well as towards the number 23 (where have I seen that before…) but eventually they all do make sense. If there's one thing you have to hand to Victor Salva, it's his ability to bring new variations to old clichés (depiction on demons, paradoxes, deserted towns…) and his courage to insert shock-twists and unconventional endings. "Dark House" ("Haunted" is such an awfully mundane title…) contains a couple of nasty killings and bloody make-up effects, but overall I hoped it would have been gorier. Tobin Bell, also the co- producer, gives a good menacing performance and it was particularly a relief to see him in a different role than the tiresome and annoyingly arrogant Jigsaw character! "Dark House" is an enjoyable little side project, Mr. Salva, thank you for that, but now please pull yourself together and start filming "Jeepers Creepers 3: Cathedral"!

Haunted aka Dark House, is a good surprise for horror fans and for a horror movie containing this specific theme, a theme that has been repeated a hundred times before, and most of the times, the result was awful.

Story is familiar to anyone, so i won't mention it. This movie has many elements you've seen before. But it manages to combine them affectively by creating a unique atmosphere. Dark House has a good plot, with very good flow, intense atmosphere, keeps your interest the whole time. There are many gloomy scenes, which helps the story's atmosphere and gets the viewer in the mood of it. It's not boring at all. Yeah OK, it has some clichés and flaws, where all movies have, but it's not disappointing or annoying at all.

Victor Salva has created his best movie so far, at least in horror ones. It gives you a surprisingly good atmosphere, good plot, suspension, tense and scary moments. There's a constant tension the whole time. The appearance of Tobin Bell is a huge plus, with his great acting and incredibly deep voice, on a role who easily manages to deliver, tricking and chilling the viewers the way he knows to. Leslie Ann Down is a positive thing too, who is still gorgeous at the age of 60.

I avoided to write any details about the story, cause i didn't want to reveal anything and spoil someones interest to watch this movie.

Overall, this is a very good movie, and i definitely recommend it.

6 out of 10.

This movie could have been something. The plot is pretty cool, well written and dynamic. The acting is the average for an horror movie. But what makes this not get a 6 or even a 7 to me, is the directing. The director is pretty lame connecting scenes, creating the atmosphere, making the things work. At some point i was thinking to myself: "Dude,this movie is not SO low budget." Cause some of the locations really seemed to cost a little money, the actors are know of the public and even have the Jigsaw on it. Someone paid for this and i really hope that it has been the director cause he's the reason this movie is bad. Anyway, if you don't have nothing to do some random night, give this one a try. It may not amuze you the way it should but can give you some laughs. The sound track is almost inexistent, you can barely hear something there. I don't know what else to say. I watched it just because we are in that period of the year thats the releases are just a little few.

A friend and I decided we would watch a low budget horror flick and I chose this because I saw that it was rated 4.7. It was a lot better than we anticipated. There were a couple of bumpy spots and the acting was mediocre. The movie seemed like it had too many different elements till the end. The ending brought all the weird points together. All in all I felt it was an enjoyable movie. Well worth the watch!! :)

I would suggest this movie to anyone looking for a inexpensive horror movie done right. The camera work was done very well, the special effects were fairly good but you could tell it was fake. I am glad the ending for this movie was good and tied the entire movie by the end of the flick.

It starts off pretty well, don't they all though, then it gets a bit rushed and disjointed in the middle to end. They could have run another half hour in the second half to explain what the hell was going on a bit more. Not a bad movie though.