Dark House and Believable Bloodshed: A Movie Review

Writers: Darin Scott, and Kerry Douglas Dye.

Dark House is a film from writer and director Darin Scott (Tale from the Hood), which completed in 2009 and was not released until July 30th of this year, theatrically. This film beat out seven others to be presented by both Lightning Entertainment and Fangoria for a nationwide released, which included three cities. The film offers a twist on the usual haunted house theme from horror films and actress Meghan Ory displays an alright performance as central character Claire Thompson, who has been traumatized after becoming a witness to a child murder massacre. Her attempt to desensitize her fear at the Darrode family home, where the slaughter took place, is outmatched by the director's ability to show an interesting visual sphere. A performance from Jeffrey Combs is especially well done.

G. Allen Johnson of the San Francisco Chronicle says of the visual display: "it is well-made, with a very nice look to it and assured direction from Darin Scott." There is a lot of care and attention placed in the horror icons who terrorize a group of theatre students. These aspiring actors and actresses get paid $300 dollars a day to be sliced and diced in a brilliant fashion, with bold colours enhancing the drama. As well, the many villains are entertainingly drawn and the film should be avoided by those with coulrophobia (fear of clowns).

Although this is a paint by numbers horror film, with several young twenty-somethings entering an isolated locale to be murdered one by one, the melodramatic acting by Jeffrey Combs and slightly less so by Claire Thompson makes the ride both spooky and fun. Combs is especially entertaining "he's the guy you kind of love to hate really. Combs delivers a hilarious, over-the-top performance that makes it so you can't take your eyes off the screen whenever he's on it" (Dread Central). But, the rest of the characters are mostly fodder for an insatiable murderess, who has come back from the dead to kill trespassers via hologram.

Dark House is available now through Blockbuster-on-demand and the film will be available on DVD September 28th. There is a reason this film won the Fangoria Frightfest contest and the interesting visuals, while not helped by a unique story, are amplified by some of the character acting. Johnson says of the film "The narrow target audience of 'Dark House' is horror fans," and really are there any other types of fans out there?

More details on Dark House winning the Fangoria Frightfest theatrical release:

Dark House at Fangoria

More details on the film's plot and a photo from the film, which shows one of the antagonists:

Dark House on 28DLA

Dark House reviewed at Dread Central by Heather Wixson:

Dark House Reviewed at Dread

The film is reviewed here by the San Fran' Chronicle:

A Review of the Film at the Chronicle