The Overlook Theatre Reviews: The Darkness

0 of 7 viewers "Liked" "The Darkness" (USA, 2016)

Here's what the creatures had to say:

Lord Battle - "The Darkness starts off really strong, it actually looks a lot like The Hills Have Eyes (2006) but with more of an Amblin vibe. Then a year passes and we get a very standard setup for a ghost story. It's hard to tell where this film goes off the rails as it seems to never leave the haunted house set up, which is only accented by the complete lack of jump scares. There is one glimpse of a monster that looked to be practical effects but you only see a flash of it in a closet. I'm guessing this film had production issues, I mean if a ghost story doesn't scare Dabbles, something's wrong. Overall The Darkness is 20% confusing 80% disappointing. Skip this one." - 2 Stars

Speed Demon - "Think you have seen a bad film recently...? Well you haven't seen this one.Way too many ideas that were tossed together, so the result was this perfect recipe for a disastrous masterpiece. This film was truly painful to watch. Horrid CG, bland characters, and a foolish story." - 1 Star

KillDozer - "From the amazingly talented and underrated Greg Mclean (Wolf Creek, Rouge) and a few of the awesome writers behind the sadly under appreciated Bait 3D, comes a film that baffles the mind because of how lost and and forgettable it is. Sadly, these talents did not come together to bring you something new and fun, but misguided and boring. It felt like I was watching 10 different movies all with different plots and they were all terrible. Even some talented cast members seemed to be falling asleep and not wanting anything to do with the film (much like myself in the theatre). Actors like Kevin Bacon (Friday the 13th, Tremors) and Radha Mitchell (Silent Hill, Man On Fire) who have proven they have the skills, felt bland. What we end up with as an audience is a lot of questions but no inspiration to care about what the answers might be because it's a waste of time and energy. All in all the effects were GC and unimaginative, the writing was sad and unimaginative, not to mention extremely plagiaristic, but it did have some oddly beautiful cinematography at times. A waste of time, money, and effort created by a lot of people who can do much better. Sadly 1 star for the effort but no reason anyone should see this film as it is negative on the fun and scare factor." - 1 Star

Huntress - "If I didn't have so much fun giggling through The Darkness, I would be seriously disappointed that this was the only horror movie to take advantage of a Friday the 13th release date, and that we all sat through it. But all the dead end sub-plots and choppy writing just made me laugh. It's terrible and missing all the good elements of a horror movie, but it could be a pretty fun watch with friends." - 2 Stars

Dabbles - "To be honest, the actors were promising, intro was promising, but it totally didn't deliver. Too textbook." - 2 Stars

The Creature of the ComiCombs - "This movie felt like a bunch of different writers threw their scripts into a blender and just poured out a giant mess that resulted in The Darkness. The bland performances by the actors did nothing to give this movie the slightest glimmer of hope. None of it made much sense and there was nothing to make you get behind any of the characters, they were all written as a bunch of aggravated jerks. Judging by the groans at the end of this movie it's safe to say I'm not alone in disliking it." - 1 Star

The Impostor - "After watching a few good horror films that exceeded my expectations recently, The Darkness was a complete let down by comparison. Going into this first summer horror film of the year I was excited to see the first showing to start my weekend but I was thoroughly disappointed. Mediocre acting, no good scares and irrelevant subplots sums up The Darkness and frankly it should just stay in the darkness. I don't think I'd recommend this film to anyone, unless they were looking for a bad movie night." - 1 Star

The Overlook Theatre Final Rating*

(Below is for after you've seen the film)

I’d like to bring something to attention before I talk about this film. Our review system only works if we have 5 or more people in attendance at a screening, so when 7 people pay to go see a film that ends up being a flop, the star rating takes a greater hit. I try to remove that element from my reviews but I honestly think it’s a valid argument. I mean, why do people love/hate cinema? It’s usually their personal experiences/beliefs coinciding with a well made movie (or not). The reason I’m addressing this now is because there are much worse films out there than The Darkness. Had it been on Netflix like Hush, who knows, maybe it would have gotten a whole 2 stars.

Ghost stories are all about testing the strength of the Nuclear family. The Darkness presents perhaps the most ready to crumble family in horror history. The dad is a cheater, mom is a recovering alcoholic, the son who sets everything off with the “curiosity kill the cat” rule is autistic, and the daughter is bulimic. The daughter's ailment is brought up as the straw that breaks the family's back, everyone else has their shortcomings revealed during the intro.

Now blaming the autistic kid for everything seems so taboo in today's world, but I’ll give The Darkness team credit, they didn’t shy away from this one bit. In fact, they have a brief montage of the mother doing Google research and one of the phrases she looks for is “Autistic Ghosts”
I really would have liked to see the alcoholism and internet research turn into a paranoia that really pushed Bronny into doing some crazy stuff. Oh well, at least we can learn from her mistakes and know never to use the internet for research, and to always check with an expert (the one thing they didn't steal from Paranormal Activity). Wait, I forgot, everything she found online wasn't only correct it was exactly right and even tailored to her situation. So I've done a little internet research of my own  to see if I too could come to the same conclusions.

Here's what I found when searching "Autistic Ghost" on Google

Okay, so the autistic Google search was pretty spot on... This does look almost exactly like her fake "Google" results, so much so that they might have just used these actually results.
 Next on the list of other modern methods of research used was YouTube. So, of course, I hit YouTube looking for a documentary on the Anasazi Indians that look anything like the one Bronny found. The video I’ve attached below is a short documentary that jumps pretty quickly into assuming there was shamanistic magic in use. The 5 other docs on YouTube either feel like they’d be shown in a high school class or are hosted by some douche.

If you had a positive experience or just would like to add to the discussion please comment below or find us on InstaGram!

-Lord Battle

*Based on the star ratings turned in by character reviewers, others viewed and got to "Dislike" or "Like" but that does not effect the rating.