Dark House Review

Written by: JoeTerror   

I really can't believe this took top honors at the 2009 Shriekfest Film Festival! Believe me I was a bit duped by the trailer as well. Darin Scott directs and what starts off great quickly goes downhill after about 20 minutues, it seemed like he was trying to pull some Sam Raimi moves but instead delivers a hokey, lame, muddled mess. Even the over-the-top Jeffrey Combs couldn't save this film and it's one house that should go into foreclosure!

 Like I said, it starts off pretty damn good as Claire Thompson (Meghan Ory) as a little girl is dared into entering the old, spooky, Darrode house. Can you say peer pressure. Anyway, once inside the foster home she finds dead children all scattered about as the sinister looking Miss Darrode is in the kitchen shoving her arms down the garbage disposal.

Skip 14 years later and Claire is trying to overcome her demons and is told the only way to overcome her fears is to face them head on. Long story short Claire and her friends who are taking an acting class get visited by Walston (Jeffrey Combs) who is in need of some actors for his latest spook house attraction, "Dark House". The director tries to make it campy and fun but Walston, and his partners, were just so over-the-top and silly it almost became laughable. Well Claire takes this as an opportunity to face her fears and her and the gang decide to take part. The house is wired up and loaded from top to bottom with a revolutionary holographic system and here's where it goes haywire, literally. Seems like Miss Darrode's spirit invades the computer system, yawn, and after being show over and over again, "Trojan Horse Detected", "Systems Overload", "Virus Is Invading"...ok ok we get it. Oh did I say the graphics were really cheap ass looking too?

 Well, as you might have guessed things get a bit grisly throughout the house as the various sets, spooks, and goblins take matters into their own hands. Or is it Miss Darrode exacting her revenge?

Again, what started out pretty decent just went downhill and real fast. The acting was bad, the effects were pretty lousy cgi, and it just wasn't fun or scary to say the least. I wouldn't recommend buying this "Dark House". I gave it two stars for the first 20 minutes.