By Geno McGahee
I am a big fan of horror anthologies. You usually get at least one good tale out of it and you can walk away feeling a little satisfied. When I saw the cover of IN THE DARK, a film by David Buchert and Chris St. Croix, I was compelled. A ventriloquist dummy masked killer with an axe is an easy sale for me, but I have been fooled by good cover art before.
We begin with two sisters hiding out in a hotel after a crime spree. They have a bag of VHS tapes. All of them are horror movies. They decided to watch the horror films, which are the segments of this anthology.
THE KEEPER
A group of killers adopt a new member, but she cannot get into it. She tries to shoot a guy that is tied up, but she just can’t muster the courage. Her hubby, the leader of this group, takes over and begins torturing the guy. In the other room, we have the other two members of this group having sex. Well, Chucky (Clay Brocker) is paying less attention to the hot chick sitting on his lap then to the video game he is playing. The producers of this film did not put much effort into this video game. An 8-bit Nintendo game had better graphics. What the fuck game was he playing and why was it so much more interesting than the hot chick bouncing on his lap? Strange.
An old man shows up and that’s when the group faces some consequences.
THE KEEPER is mediocre. The monster is huge, which is nice, but it has no mobility. Credit to them for constructing it, but it’s not very lifelike. This story doesn’t have any likable characters and we really don’t get to learn much about them. I would rate this tale a 4/10.
DUMMY
A kid and his ventriloquist dummy are walking through the woods when two bullies approach. These brothers, Travis and Charlie, get aggressive and take the dummy from him as their sister, Ann (Olivia Bishop) pleads to leave the kid alone. They play hide and seek and put the dummy on a ledge. When the kid tries to get the dummy, he falls into the water and only the dummy floats up.
We fast forward many years and now Ann is living alone, but she gets a visit from a stranger that takes her hostage. She lies on the floor in a room in her bra and panties as a killer in the ventriloquist mask makes her play a game. OK, the makers may have seen SAW a few dozen times.
DUMMY is shot incredibly well. Some of the visuals are very good. This is absolutely the best tale in the film, but it’s still falls short of great. Rating: 6/10.
TO BE LOVED
Oh dear lord. Kill me now. Marvin (Justin Hand) lives in a small apartment and has no luck with ladies. Suddenly, his VCR begins talking to him in a female voice and offers some guidance. This is obviously a tribute (I guess) to LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS.
Marvin begins bringing home prostitutes and killing them, feeding them to the VCR. The VCR, as it eats, begins sprouting flesh and turns into this glob of meat that demands blood, noting that it’s still hungry over and over again. Feed me Seymour.
After meeting a new girl, Marvin makes the decision not to kill anyone anymore. This leads to a strange scene that i don’t remember from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. Rating: 1/10
The wraparound tale ends rather cool. I have always loved when the wraparound tale gets intruded on by the tales that were discussed. IN THE DARK was a big disappointment. The tales were forgettable. It was shot really well and had some good visuals, but the stories and overall writing were not very good.
Overall Rating: 4/10
