Beneath the Darkness

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.

I was hugely looking forward to "Beneath the Darkness" when it played at the annual Brussels Festival of Fantastic Films during a midnight screening, because I was told – and I eagerly believed – that it was an uncompromising and outrageous horror/thriller that granted Dennis Quaid the opportunity to depict a psychotic and derailed small Texas-town serial killer. Dennis Quaid as a crazed mortician! What avid genre fanatic wouldn't look forward to this? Together with a theater full of enthusiast people, I expected a tremendously high body count, lots of pitch-black humor, perverted undertones and a totally whack Dennis Quaid one-man-show. Things didn't exactly turn out as favorable … I wouldn't go as far to call "Beneath the Darkness" a disastrous film, but it's definitely a bit too ambitious and wannabe intelligent for its own good. Quaid's character Ely Vaughn, the local undertaker who's still highly admired within the community because he used to be a star quarterback in high school, is indeed an utterly disturbed individual but he's not a maniac on a rampage. Quite the contrary, in fact, Ely is a very distinguished person and his dark side only comes to the surface when a couple of school kids decide to sniffle around in his private business. The first five minutes of the film, as well as the final fifteen, are very entertaining and exciting, not coincidentally because these are the only times that Quaid gets to showcase his evil grimaces and madman capacities. Everything in between is just an overlong series of clichéd and derivative situations. Of course nobody believes the teenagers when they're accusing one of the most prominent town members of being a psychopath and obviously the cheerleader beauty will gradually fall for the outsider nerd instead of her cowardly jock boyfriend. And then I'm not even talking about the pointless sub plot of the nerdy kid who still feels responsible for his little sister's death ten years ago and the difficult relationship with his mother. That was completely irrelevant and downright redundant. In spite of being the big star of the picture, Dennis Quaid actually has surprisingly little screen time and – frankly – nearly not enough chances to illustrate the craziness of his character's persona. This is one giant missed opportunity, to say the least.

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.

Not the best, not the worst. Watch if you love thrillers.