When a group of drama students are hired to play parts in a live action haunted house attraction, things go from fun to fatal in Dark House – a film presented at the Fangoria Frightfest.
Jeffrey Combs plays Walston Rey, a flamboyant man channeling Geoffrey Rush's character from 1999's House on Haunted Hill. Walston recruits the young actors to play roles in a house considered haunted by legend due to a 14-year-old murder spree of young children by psycho Janet Darrode. Miss Darrode also perished gruesomely in the house and the legend of her spirit haunting the home has become legendary.
Walston's intention is to have two reporters visit the house and with the use of his live actors and a sophisticated audio-video-hologram system, they will be able to project images of everything from flesh eating zombies to axe wielding clowns.
Meghan Ory plays Claire, an acting student who just so happens to have a history with the house as she was the last child to venture through its doors and exit alive. Fourteen years of therapy and bad dreams lead to her confrontation with her demons in the house when the holograms come alive and begin to diabolically kill all those trapped inside.
Dark House is filled with true scares and some of the creepiest ghost-like monsters since Thir13een Ghosts in 2001. Director Darin Scott working on his own screenplay mixes some quality scares with spooky characters and it is no surprise that the film was the winner for best feature at the Shriekfest Film Festival in 2009.
Not all the humor in Dark House works to the expected result and the film commits the new cardinal horror sin (at least amongst fans) with the overuse of CGI blood. But Dark House is able to maintain a sense of creepiness and doesn't over say its welcome coming in at a brisk 85 minutes.
Not having heard or read much about the film prior to viewing, I was surprised on how much I enjoyed Dark House. The film hit just enough right notes to make me forgive the small sins (again, the CGI) and accept it as an effective horror that is worth a visit.
www.killerreviews.com
Jeffrey Combs plays Walston Rey, a flamboyant man channeling Geoffrey Rush's character from 1999's House on Haunted Hill. Walston recruits the young actors to play roles in a house considered haunted by legend due to a 14-year-old murder spree of young children by psycho Janet Darrode. Miss Darrode also perished gruesomely in the house and the legend of her spirit haunting the home has become legendary.
Walston's intention is to have two reporters visit the house and with the use of his live actors and a sophisticated audio-video-hologram system, they will be able to project images of everything from flesh eating zombies to axe wielding clowns.
Meghan Ory plays Claire, an acting student who just so happens to have a history with the house as she was the last child to venture through its doors and exit alive. Fourteen years of therapy and bad dreams lead to her confrontation with her demons in the house when the holograms come alive and begin to diabolically kill all those trapped inside.
Dark House is filled with true scares and some of the creepiest ghost-like monsters since Thir13een Ghosts in 2001. Director Darin Scott working on his own screenplay mixes some quality scares with spooky characters and it is no surprise that the film was the winner for best feature at the Shriekfest Film Festival in 2009.
Not all the humor in Dark House works to the expected result and the film commits the new cardinal horror sin (at least amongst fans) with the overuse of CGI blood. But Dark House is able to maintain a sense of creepiness and doesn't over say its welcome coming in at a brisk 85 minutes.
Not having heard or read much about the film prior to viewing, I was surprised on how much I enjoyed Dark House. The film hit just enough right notes to make me forgive the small sins (again, the CGI) and accept it as an effective horror that is worth a visit.
www.killerreviews.com