Dark Remains

I had the luck to watch this wonderful oldskool scary-flick on the weekend-of-fear.com in Erlangen this summer. It was, like the headline already said, very dark. More then half of the movie plays in the dark. Less music - more sound- and lots of "jump"-effects. Excellent camera and a descent story about a mountain full of mysteries.

The plot is simple. The daughter of a married couple, Julie and Allen, gets murdered in the beginning by a killer in her own bed in a locked house. Strange - no murder can be found... A year later, the couple tries to escape their past and to begin a new life in a lonely mountain cabin away from the big city. But, like always, they live in a spook-house and ghosts soon appear. Julie blames herself for the death of her daughter and something evil lurks in the woods... The movie slowly begins to walk into the "poltergeist" direction just to get the "ring" turn...

Like I earlier said, the movie is dark and you can really get scared, when Julie walks straight through the woods into an abandon prison in the middle of the night just equipped with the flashlight of her camera.

If you a bored of major movies and enjoyed the recent screenplay "Silent Hill" or the haunted house tales, you we like this small independent production. The effects are placed very nicely. Not too gory and the acting is nice. Hands up for this fresh scary-movie. A good popcorn rent.

When the daughter Emma of the technical writer Allen Pyke (Greg Thompson) and the photographer Julie (Cheri Christian) is found slashed in the throat and wrists in their locked apartment, the couple decides to move to an isolated cabin in the mountains in Kingspike. Julie is very depressed and blames Allen for the death of Emma. Once in the new home, Julie sees the spirit of Emma in a photo she took in a nearby abandoned prison and she becomes obsessed shooting pictures of poltergeists. Allen is advised to move from the place by the local Jim Payne (Scott Hodges), and on May 21st, Allen finds that the former dwellers of the cabin have committed suicide, and he investigates the death in the spot and finds that many people died around May 22nd. He decides to move with Julie to a hotel, but she does not want to give up on Emma.

"Dark Remains" is a well constructed dark tale, with a great potential, but unfortunately awfully resolved. I did not like the flat performances of the Greg Thompson and Cheri Christian in the role of the lead characters. The makeup and special effects are good, considering that this is a low-budget movie, but the director uses too much the glances of spirits in the mirrors or on the back of the characters, and in the end they do not scary anymore. With some improvements in the screenplay and better performances specially of Greg Thompson this movie could be great, but my advice is to watch "Dark Remains" without great expectations, and the viewer that likes horror films might appreciate some good moments. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Espíritos do Mal" ("Evil Spirits")

"Dark Remains" caught my interest when I'd seen it mentioned in Fangoria magazine, and it seemed like an interesting flick. The story follows Julie and Allen, a young city couple who find their young daughter savagely murdered in her bed one night. To retreat from the stress of the city, the two move to a remote mountain cabin home for awhile. Things seem normal enough, and it is a nice house. As the relationship between the couple deteriorates, Julie spends most of her time taking photographs, and becoming fascinated with an abandoned prison near the house. But after inviting some friends over one weekend, and having a very strange experience, they realize something isn't right in the home, and uncover a series of previous, numerous deaths in the area - and they may be the next victims.

I was half surprised and half disappointed with his film, as strange as that may sound. I liked the storyline - it was an attempt at originality and it was nicely written, with a few problems here and there (mainly being with the way it all ended). The atmosphere reminded me a bit of a mixture between "The Shining" and "The Evil Dead" - I don't know if I'm crazy, but for some reason those two films kept popping into my mind as I watched this. It may have had to do with the basic setting (being an isolated cabin with a dark past) and the makeup effects on the ghosts, which was very reminiscent of "The Evil Dead". I did find the film sufficiently scary, and I was creeped out on quite a few occasions. The sets were great, and added to the film's atmosphere as well. But with these positive points, there are quite a few downfalls too.

First off, the biggest downfall in this movie was the acting. I've seen worse, but it was pretty mediocre at best, reminding me of something you'd see on a soap opera. Lines were delivered sloppily (although this may have been in part the fault of the script, because some of the written dialog was a little ridiculous), and the chemistry between the two main characters (husband and wife) just wasn't right. They seemed more like father and daughter to me, and that was a little strange. Overall, the acting was pretty flat, which is unfortunate and really hurt the movie. Along with this, there are some problems with the story too. Things don't quite "mesh" I guess you could say, and I was a little bit confused with the entire thing when it ended.

Overall, "Dark Remains" is really a mixed bag. It has some good things about it, but also some bad as well. I liked the story and the setting, and there were some really creepy things about it. But on the other hand, the acting was pretty flat and the script wasn't the best. It felt amateurish to me, although it was pretty good for being amateur. I'm not quite sure, I can't really figure out my opinion on this movie. Basically, rent it if you like indie horror films, because there is some stuff worth seeing - but there is also some stuff that you could do without that will be carried along with it. Half and half for me. 5/10.

A grieving couple move to a remote house after the death of their daughter, but they find a deadly spirit in their new home, and the locals aren't helpful ...

The opening is grim, then the daughter dies and it's not clear if it was suicide. She's maybe 7 years old, and they discover her in bed with her wrists all bloody. Ugh. Anyway, I was reading this as a metaphor for the horrible inevitability of suicide, but it got more literal and ended up fairly spooky.

The direction/editing is plain, with a soundtrack of plinky-piano/twangly-harp, just right for TV melodrama. Lots of poor attempts at jump-scares, especially the back-fitting of a figure that wasn't there the last time you looked, the figure moving across the background. The tumbling down the stairs one worked, both times.

Greatest weakness is the script, because it doesn't combine things into each scene, and there are too many characters for such an intimate story. Plus the dialogue is weak, leaving lots of meaning on the table.

Overall, a cheesy production, but the theme is strong and sort of breaks through in the end.

If you have ever seen a movie by Brian Avenet-Bradley and compares it to the feedbacks it gets on IMDb, you know that most of the comments and votes are faked. TRUST ME: you will be bored! People of the production team write their feedback themselves (sometimes they even admit it). But that's not enough: They also click constantly "no" whenever there is a negative comment on the movie. That's why negative critics are always placed behind the hyped ones.

The movie itself is bad, bad, bad: bad acting, bad lighting, bad script, bad ending. Believe me now! If not, you will believe me later!

Brian Avenet-Bradley might be quite a good business man. Otherwise it cannot be explained that he finds people who still finance his movies. (Okay, they are cheap, but nevertheless.) But as a creative person, he is a complete failure.