A Date with Ghosts

Oh, come on. This isn't a movie. It isn't even a short. The handful of people who threw this together by walking around a churchyard for a while with a video camera in tow weren't even trying. You often can't hear what the participants are muttering, and when you do it's so ear-punishingly redundant and awkward that it makes you grateful for the scenes in which the dialogue cannot be understood.

I've seen hundreds of independent horror projects, but this one scrapes the bottom of the grave. There isn't a single effective moment or legitimate idea here. Just a few friends loitering in the dark and trying to look scared while the guy running the camera attempts (often unsuccessfully)to keep them in focus.

They can't even hit the 70-minute mark without cutting in every bit of meaningless outdoor footage (trees, footpaths, etc.) they could muster up.

An appalling, indifferently slapped-together insult to your intelligence.

After getting lost in the wilderness, a group of friends get together to investigate the disappearance of another friend at a local abbey rumored to be haunted by undead ghostly monks and must try to stop their deadly plans trying to open a portal to another dimension while being trapped inside.

This was a decent enough if somewhat heavily flawed genre effort. One of the main positives to be had with this one is the inherently creepy atmosphere present throughout, as this manages to effectively create the idea of something supernatural happening. The randomized nature of the storyline, for all of its many faults, effectively brings about the kind of idea that the decayed and ruined remains of the abbey provide an ideal hunting ground for the ghost monks to carry out their plans on the different strangers that come along. With the select setpieces taking place in the creepy location within the darkened and decayed ruins, while also being able to get outside for several decent enough scenes in the surrounding woods, this has enough here to get some positive aspects. There are big issues with this one that bring it down. The main factor here is the absolutely inane and just flat-out confusing storyline that never once makes any kind of sense whatsoever. There are two sections here with different characters, motivations, and plotlines that are featured here, yet neither of them intersect, reference the other, or have anything to do with anything beyond involving the same group of monks at the same location. Whether they are aware of the other since a plotpoint of the second segment involved them arriving at the location to help a friend which could've easily been the couple in the first segment is never broached and the general lack of dialogue means the exploits of the ghost monks and their purpose is only given a select bit of lip service rather than a full-on explanation. That doesn't help matters with the generally paltry production values that make this one look every bit as cheap as expected. With absolutely zero sense for the time or day, with sequences taking place moments later being in broad daylight, the dead of night, or plain overcast skies, even though it was bright and sunny. This makes for a confusing enough time without looking even further, as there's genuine evidence it was shot at different locations while most, if not all, of the few bits of dialogue here are being improvised for its generally cheap look. With a lack of gore and a somewhat sluggish pace that makes a seventy-minute running time feel far longer without much going on to help beef this one up, it does have some pretty major issues holding it down.

Rated Unrated/R: Language and Violence.

Special effects are great opening credits where fantastic lovely looking actors acting was great a very well thought out film monks are creepy made me jump this film not allowed in UK yet so the other review about it being bad clearly not watched it OR Was A Pirate viewing this film has effects like harry potter loved how the monks disappeared have bought a copy and friends love it location in England country side and ruins of old historical building are great to see jack played a good part Claire was ace wow loved it costumes where good and I loved the fact that this film showed imagination and class for a low budget film. It's good would love to see what Jason brown could do with a large budget heard he's working on a film and will be the first to buy it called dark Vale great job see your new film soon Lucy

As I have already wasted 70 minutes on this hideously acted, badly spliced together trash, I can just say this:

I hate trashing indie efforts because usually they are a good alternative to formula, mass-produced crap from Hollywood...but in this case, all it leaves me with is that I feel a hell of a lot better about my own short films now.

My hand-held camera work and respect for proper plots and links now look like A-list productions compared to this. I cannot believe I actually found this "movie" on IMDb!

Low budget but really enjoyed the film, great CGI, good acting, spooky monks, something different and not just another rehash of a zombie film or something that's been done a 1000 times before. Made me jump too, great opening credits that really impressed me, the sounds pretty good for a low budget film, I would give this a watch. reminded me of Tomb of the blind dead!

In the 13th century there existed a legion of evil knights known as the Templars, who quested for eternal life by drinking human blood and committing sacrifices. Executed for their unholy deeds, the Templars bodies were left out for the crows to peck out their eyes. Now, in modern day Portugal, a group of people stumble on the Templars abandoned monastery, reviving their rotting corpses to terrorise the land.

Locations were awesome, great looking churches, spooky cool evil looking monks and 70mins not to long.