In Search of Darkness

Count me amongst those who were ecstatic at the prospect of a four and a half hour documentary on my favourite decade of horror, the 1980s. I felt disappointment set in pretty early however, as the obvious budget limitations had the film feeling like a slightly better produced YouTube video. That feeling may have also stemmed from a number of the talking heads being actual YouTube video bloggers. These people can be entertaining at times, but are ultimately little more than fans themselves. I would have preferred their time given to other folks actually involved in the making of these films. Then again, if Joe Bob Briggs was simply allowed to talk for four and half hours we would have gleaned much more than we did from the ensemble.

The best moments of In Search of Darkness were the sections in which the cultural and historical relevance of 80s horror was analyzed. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the doc is comprised of simple and brief commentary on classics of the decade. The decision to structure the discussion year-by-year (marked by title cards) made the project feel laborious at times.

I'm glad I watched the film, in the sense that it felt like talking about horror movies for an afternoon with fellow fanatics. Don't expect a deeply thorough examination though.

There was so much hype surrounding this with those brilliant crowd fund trailers. It would truly be hard for it live up to its promise. What stands is a decent effort but fails to offer anything really new and doesn't spend nearly enough time on any of the films and skips so many amazing gems of the decade. That being said it's decently entertaining but I would have preferred a ten hour cut instead of the four and a half one this is.

Way over hyped and over priced. I've heard the same things from the same directors for years. Nothing really new other than a few annoying personalities. The Dead Meat podcast guy is kind of overbearing in this. It was ok. Not worth $60.

I was looking forward to this documentary, but after slogging through almost four and half hours, I'm disappointed. There are too many titles missing, too much time spent on the usual Freddy and Jason series, and the titles they do include are given short shrift.

It seems like the creators were going for quantity over quality. And some of the talking heads are a little tough to take, especially the obnoxious James Janisse from the Dead Meat channel. He's obviously reading his lines, and trying to sell them like a used car salesman.

Seeing John Carpenter was cool, but we learn almost nothing new from him here.

While this is an ambitious attempt to document 80's horror, it misses the mark.

Great mix of horror clips and interviews. The only person who I found annoying due to his fake weather man/newscaster voice was the overly-animated host of Dead Meat on Youtube. I don't mean to single him out but the guy should consider toning it down as it smacks of phoniness. The rest of the interviews seemed great and authentic and it was a fun throw back to see all the clips of 80's films. Awesome watch for horror fans.