Pretty 21-year-old Celia (Monica Keena, who is very good at appearing traumatized, confused and panicked) goes to a frat party where a creep uses a date-rape drug on her. She dies from an overdose and awakens in a ghostly parallel world which, in spite of a lot of exposition, never gets as much of an explanation as it needs. She can see what's happening in the "real" world in mirrors and other reflective surfaces, but she can't figure out the complicated rules for getting into heaven, especially with all the demon-zombie types chasing her around. She is advised by a smug, inscrutable guy named Donovan (David Anders, who is perfect in the role) who claims to be the ghost who has been invisibly protecting her since childhood, formerly a child himself. Which begs the question: how and why would a person who died at age 8 grow into an adult after death? Celia's grandpa (the great Tim Thomerson) keeps popping in and out, sometimes as his kindly old self and sometimes as a snarling gray-faced corpse. In a real creative lowpoint, the ghoulies are called "soul eaters". This movie has a great professional look but is too complicated for its own good and violates its own internal logic on several occasions. If the dead "can't affect the living", as we're told, then how was the Donovan character able to pick Celia up and lift her out of the way of a speeding car when she was alive? And how is Donovan able to physically touch Celia right after he explains that nobody in the ghost dimension can touch her without her touching them first? Why didn't Donovan od something to prevent her being raped and murdered in the first place? These and other inconsistencies will probably distract you from the confused plot, but at least there's plenty of action and danger to propel things along. Swear words are used awkwardly in places that might cause unwanted laughter. The ending seems to imply that the story's most evil character has adopted a new identity in preparation for a future attempt on the soul of Celia's bimbo roommate, but this point isn't made clear. In fact, a lot of points aren't made clear. What was the bit about Celia's father thrown in there for? Why did he leave her, what was the nature of his briefly mentioned "sickness", and why did the writers think it was worth bothering with to have him make a quick appearance in the afterlife? Even with the "caught between life and death" theme, the movie doesn't have the intentional dreamlike feel of a story left deliberately illogical and surreal in the manner of CARNIVAL OF SOULS or JACOB'S LADDER; instead, it plays out like a script full of loose ends, cluttered with unhelpful details. Maybe viewers were meant to see it as the heroine's dream or delusion, rather than anything really happening in an actual place. The afterlife depicted in the BEETLEJUICE movies is more coherent than the one seen here. Though sloppy and admittedly no classic, LEFT IN DARKNESS is entertaining enough to watch and is certainly not among the worst horror efforts you've seen. Or maybe I should say it's not among the worst I've seen.
