Jeffrey Combs' Walston Rey is an enthusiastic owner of haunted house attractions, preparing for his biggest and best yet, the old Darrode estate notorious for a massacre of orphans at the hands of their den mother. Claire(Meghan Ory)is the lone survivor of that massacre and her memories of that awful day are buried within her mind..encouraged by her therapist, Claire will coerce the students of her acting class to accept Rey's job offers to work in various roles in his new spook house, leading patrons through his "maze of horrors" utilizing state of the art digital holograph technology( a sort of Illusion system)to scare them. What none of them could ever imagine is that the evil spirit of Janet Darrode(Diane Salinger)would corrupt the computer program using holographic killers as tools to murder and maim. The reason behind the slaughter, that great mystery, will become known once it is unlocked in Claire's mind. Ms. Darrode, we come to find out through snippets of memory which return to Claire as she spends time in the house, was a religious fanatic who whipped her children repeatedly while they quoted verse, believing them to be demon possessed. Claire, in a sense, is the one "who got away" and it seems that Janet wants to claim one final soul so she can be "acquitted" for failing to finish the job. In this movie we are led to believe that holographic killers can gain enough physical essence to attack real human beings thanks to Janet's infecting the programming which brought them to life..a bit too silly and far fetched for me personally, although there's an ending(a twist, I guess)that questions everything we witnessed take place once the doors and windows were locked shut and Ms. Darrode started up the killing spree. Other victims to emerge include two journalists who will write articles on the house, critiquing how effective it is(learning first hand)and Rey's haunted house crew. The gore which does appear on screen, is mostly digital, a head taken off with a fountain squirting blood upward like a geyser and long fingernails impaling another. Combs understands his character is a ham and approaches him that way, amusing in his speeches to his employees about fear and the audience.
Review of Dark House
