Beneath the Darkness

"Beneath the Darkness" was a great movie in some ways, but also a somewhat mediocre movie in others. It was like taking a trip back to the late 1980's or early 1990's story-wise. Personally I found the story a little bit too far fetched for my liking, as I didn't think that any rational and sane person would return to the house after seeing a friend killed. But hey, wouldn't be much of a movie if they didn't, eh?

The story in "Beneath the Darkness" is about a couple of young people who break into a mortician's house as they believe it to be haunted. And seeing silhouettes dancing in the window just adds to their belief that something ghostly is going on. But the Ely mortuary holds a dark secret past.

I enjoyed the movie, well most of it anyway. Right up until you find out about the reason for Ely's behaviour and what caused him to do what he does. That was just a rather silly turn of events in my opinion, and it didn't really do justice to the movie. But to top it off, the movie had to end in a very laughable manner. I will not reveal the ending here, but personally I found that ending to be one of the worst endings to an otherwise alright thriller.

What I really enjoyed most in the movie was Dennis Quaid's (playing Ely) performance. He was really doing a great job coming off as the somewhat psychotic and disturbingly creepy mortician. (Right up to the ending, that is.) And the people they had cast for the roles of Abby and Travis, played by Aimee Teegarden and Tony Oller respectively, also did good jobs.

There weren't all that much suspense to the movie, sadly enough. And it was a fairly straight forward and well-paced movie, just with a couple of odd twists here and there. I think that "Beneath the Darkness" could have been a much better movie with some improvements. But all in all, it was an alright enough experience (right up to the ending).

I am giving "Beneath the Darkness" a 5/10 rating only because it was lacking suspense and because the ending was just downright ridiculous.

As also mentioned from other reviewers there are similarities between Mr. Brooks and this film. If Mr. Brooks is a Crime/Drama/Mystery film, this film cannot be a horror film, because Mr. Brooks has definitely harder scenes as this one. I don't know if the makers of this movie claim that they filmed a horror movie. If yes then it is a really poor horror film and you will be disappointed as a horror movie fan. But if you watch it as a Crime/Thriller it is watchable and not a waste of time. It depends on what your expectation is. In marketing the product must be declared correctly: if you declare horror in a product, horror must be in the product.

In the music business there is a genre named easy-listening, translated into the movie business I would say this film is a "easy-watching" film: not bad and not really good.

It's not a fantastic movie, but is actually surprisingly engaging. It has a much more sophisticated story than I expected considering its focus on these high school kids.

I mean, it's not the most complex story, but I was expecting a straight up slasher flick. In my opinion, the casting of the kids was bungled because they are all too good looking and kind of equivalent, creating that slasher expectation of disposable teen red shirts.

Back on the plus side, the young actors do a reasonable job. Not Oscar level, but I never felt they were phoning it in.

The biggest problem here is actually Quaid. It's not his abilities, it's just he's playing in a completely different movie than everybody else. He's pretty much playing it as a spoof or comedy.

Dennis Quaid plays a creepy mortician in a central Texas town. A group of teens decide to trespass his abode for thrills and everything goes awry.

Quaid and cutie Aimee Teegarden head the cast, but it's Tony Oller who shines here as the troubled protagonist. He's reminiscent of Robby Benson.

As noted in my title blurb, the story is akin to a Scooby-Doo yarn, but realistic and without the dog. Although Quaid is over-the-top and somewhat campy as the villain the rest of the cast play it straight. I was surprised by the dramatic score and a few really touching scenes.

Some complain that the subplot of a dead sister and a ghost sighting goes nowhere, but it's there for a reason, just think about it.

Although there's some realistic cussing there's zero raunch.

I was pleasantly surprised by this little film. It's classy, sometimes moving, mysterious and thrilling.

The film runs 1 hour, 36 minutes, and shot in Bastrop & Smithville, Texas.

GRADE: B+/A-

I looked at the IMDb rating, thought I would give this movie a go.

What a waste of time! It is like watching paint dry or waiting for grass to grow. A complete waste of 90 or so minutes.

How anyone would dare to compare this pile of junk to Jack Nicholson in the Shining beggars belief.

This movie is not fit to lick the boots of that movie.

The characters are 2 dimensional, who thought this garbage up? Do yourselves a favour - go and watch The Shining, this isn't worth a dime, it was actually painful to try and sit through the movie. It certainly isn't horror, and it is barely a movie.