Product: Darkness: The Vampire Version (2005)
Rating: 2.0
It's Okay... I Guess
First things first, this movie is LOOOOOOOW Budget. It's cool that after all these years the movie finally gets a release, and the DVD is packed with extra's. I guess I can respect what the director was able to do with such a low budget, that said this still isn't necessarily a good movie. I bought this movie because I read a couple write ups online & saw an ad for it in Fangoria. Reading some of the write ups on the DVD's cover the movie is compared to "El Mariachi", "Dead Alive", "28 Days", & the first "Evil Dead" film. I'm sorry, but Lief Jonker is ABSOLUTELY not Jackson("DA"s effects blew this movie's away, not even comparable), if I had to compare this movie to one of Peter Jackson's I'd say it's closer to "Bad Taste". As far as Evil Dead, the guy's gotta be just name dropping because again there's just absolutely no comparison. And as far as comparing the realism to that of "28 Days", don't even get me started, even "Trainspotting" which is only comparable because it was Boyle's first film was miles ahead. Rodriguez' "EM" is a world ahead of this movie, at least you belive in the characters if nothing else. "Darkness"s acting is horrible, you wanna just get up and smack the main vampire for being such a dork. The gore, while there are a couple well done scenes the majority doesn't really look all that real, in most cases the blood looks like Kool-Aid & the wounds look like Play-doe. Don't even get me started with the realism of the movie, take the chainsaw scene for example, if you took one to a hand like they do in the movie, I'm sorry but the hand is coming off instantly, there won't be any poking little holes in the hand with the nose of the chainsaw. The story is only your basic vampire takes over town story. This movie, while it is neat Leif was able to do what he did with such a low budget and such a long period of time really isn't anything exciting. I bought it believing this was going to be a hidden gem of horror films(I really, really wanted to like it), don't believe the hype. To give credit where credits due, this isn't like the horrible "Zombie Holocaust 1 & 2"(There's my name drop LOL)low budget, still pretty low though. I can respect the time and energy from the cast & crew that must've gone into this, I just can't help but think "home made movie" when I watch stuff like this. I just can't buy into the characters & story this way, call me superficial, just a better film stock makes a world of difference. If you can get into a low budget film, you might enjoy this movie, but know going in, this is a looow budgeted film. I'm not happy with the stuff Hollywood churns out these days either, but this isn't necessarily an alternative.