Beneath the Darkness
Tags: flashback

Plot synopsis:
Vaughn Ely is a beloved native of a small Texas town with a dark secret. Formerly the star quarterback, now he's the local mortician. When Ely discovers that his wife Rosemary is cheating on him with the high school English teacher's husband, David Moore, he makes sure they can't do it again. First, he kills Rosemary, but he does not bury her body. Instead, he hides it in his house and dances with the body each night, as though she's still alive. Second, he chases down her lover while he's out jogging at night and buries him alive in Rosemary's empty grave.
Two years later, four high school kids, Travis, Danny, Brian and his girlfriend Abby think they see a ghost in Ely's window when they see Ely dance with his wife's body. They assume since Ely's van is gone, that he is not home. They sneak inside and see what is going on. Enraged, Ely chases them down the stairs and grabs Danny before he can get away. Travis rushes back inside just in time to see Ely shove Danny down the stairs. Ely taunts Travis as he breaks Danny's neck. Ely declines to press charges against the teens, and the police do not believe Travis' accusations.
Travis and Abby become determined to find proof to support that they are telling the truth, that Ely is crazy, and that he killed Danny. When they break into Ely's house a second time, Ely captures Abby and hides her unconscious body in a casket buried in his backyard. As Travis escapes, Ely shoots and wounds him. At the hospital, the doctor notifies the police, and they keep Travis under guard. Travis recruits Brian to help him escape, and while the police chase after Brian, who they think to be Travis, Travis returns to confront Ely and free Abby.
Ely captures Travis and takes both teens to the cemetery, where he intends to bury them alive. On the way, Travis urges Abby to save herself and promises to catch up with her. While Ely forces Travis to dig his own grave, Abby frees herself and flees, only to return to rescue Travis. Abby dresses in Rosemary's clothes and berates Ely for his part in killing her. Ely's grip on his sanity, already tenuous, falters. While Ely argues with Abby-as-Rosemary, Travis sneak attacks him and Abby knocks him out before they bury him alive. The two then walk back to town to get the Sheriff. Ely is rescued from the grave but ends up in an insane asylum. Inside his cell, he proclaims that love sucks while looking into the camera, thus breaking the fourth wall.

Review: When one of them gets murdered it's up to the others to prove the morticians guilt.The movie follows a lot of the classic thriller trappings and pitfalls.
No one believes the kids story despite the obvious weirdness of the mortician character played brilliantly by Dennis Quaid with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
There are some very funny cheesy lines in there some quite tense moments too.There are some pointless parts like the main teens back story which never really amounts to anything and the fact we never get to see the teachers reaction to one of the bits of story that is eventually revealed (one that if you're paying attention you'll know before any of the characters in the movie do).
Like when you find out what the kids had seen going on through the window as well as Some of the morticians one-liners.The main cast do a pretty good job, everyone is very capable.
I always thought that a lot of his characters had a kind of wild edge to them and it was great for me in this movie to see him let that edge take over.The movie looks great and professionally filmed.
Technically you can't fault it.Strangely there seems to be a lot of hate for Beneath the darkness but If you're willingly to let it, this movie can be an enjoyable ride..
I Liked It. After watching their best friend get murdered, a group of teens struggle to expose a local mortician (Dennis Quaid) as the vicious killer and keep from becoming his next victims.I see this film has a pretty low rating and has some rather scathing reviews.
Dennis Quaid is always a joy, and the overall concept was entertaining.If I had to make any complaint, it is that the mother character is just really, really poorly acted.
That's how this excellent little mystery-horror film from 2011 struck me, and I mean that in a good way.PLOT: Dennis Quaid plays a creepy mortician in a central Texas town.
A group of teens decide to trespass his abode for thrills and everything goes awry.Quaid and cutie Aimee Teegarden head the cast, but it's Tony Oller who shines here as the troubled protagonist.
I was surprised by the dramatic score and a few really touching scenes.Some complain that the subplot of a dead sister and a ghost sighting goes nowhere, but it's there for a reason, just think about it.Although there's some realistic cussing there's zero raunch.BOTTOM LINE: I was pleasantly surprised by this great little film.
Like watching Paint Dry. I looked at the IMDb rating, thought I would give this movie a go.What a waste of time!
In marketing the product must be declared correctly: if you declare horror in a product, horror must be in the product.In the music business there is a genre named easy-listening, translated into the movie business I would say this film is a "easy-watching" film: not bad and not really good..
I was hugely looking forward to "Beneath the Darkness" when it played at the annual Brussels Festival of Fantastic Films during a midnight screening, because I was told – and I eagerly believed – that it was an uncompromising and outrageous horror/thriller that granted Dennis Quaid the opportunity to depict a psychotic and derailed small Texas-town serial killer.
Together with a theater full of enthusiast people, I expected a tremendously high body count, lots of pitch-black humor, perverted undertones and a totally whack Dennis Quaid one-man-show.
Things didn't exactly turn out as favorable  I wouldn't go as far to call "Beneath the Darkness" a disastrous film, but it's definitely a bit too ambitious and wannabe intelligent for its own good.
Quaid's character Ely Vaughn, the local undertaker who's still highly admired within the community because he used to be a star quarterback in high school, is indeed an utterly disturbed individual but he's not a maniac on a rampage.
Quite the contrary, in fact, Ely is a very distinguished person and his dark side only comes to the surface when a couple of school kids decide to sniffle around in his private business.
The first five minutes of the film, as well as the final fifteen, are very entertaining and exciting, not coincidentally because these are the only times that Quaid gets to showcase his evil grimaces and madman capacities.
In spite of being the big star of the picture, Dennis Quaid actually has surprisingly little screen time and – frankly – nearly not enough chances to illustrate the craziness of his character's persona.
First let me say I love Dennis Quaid and just about every movie I've seen him in.
It is great to finally see Dennis Quaid play a character with personality again!
Dennis Quaid plays Vaughn Ely, a mortician who is crazy.
I already mentioned how good Quaid is, but the star of this film is Tony Oller.
Beneath The Darkness is strange and not everyone is going to like it, but it's one of these films that you keep watching, because you want to know what's going to happen.
"Beneath the Darkness" was a great movie in some ways, but also a somewhat mediocre movie in others.
Personally I found the story a little bit too far fetched for my liking, as I didn't think that any rational and sane person would return to the house after seeing a friend killed.
But hey, wouldn't be much of a movie if they didn't, eh?The story in "Beneath the Darkness" is about a couple of young people who break into a mortician's house as they believe it to be haunted.
I will not reveal the ending here, but personally I found that ending to be one of the worst endings to an otherwise alright thriller.What I really enjoyed most in the movie was Dennis Quaid's (playing Ely) performance.
(Right up to the ending, that is.) And the people they had cast for the roles of Abby and Travis, played by Aimee Teegarden and Tony Oller respectively, also did good jobs.There weren't all that much suspense to the movie, sadly enough.
I think that "Beneath the Darkness" could have been a much better movie with some improvements.
A horror/thriller starring Dennis Quaid looked a decent prospect on paper however from the start it was pretty clear this would be no masterpiece.
Dennis Quaid is a decent actor but unfortunately this is not one of his best efforts and I found him way over the top and unbelievable in this role.
I've always been a big fan of Dennis Quaid's but my God, what was going on in his head when he agreed to do this B-movie horror/chiller?!
I liked the casting and the actors did a good job with the story they were given.
I would like to see more of the actors in future films and hope this movies poor post-production does not harm their careers..
Lifeless Thriller that although Marketed as a Horror Movie it falls way short because aside from some Graveyard Stuff about Premature Burials, Paranormal Ghost Happenings, and wait a minute this is trying to be a Horror Movie, so why is it so Not-Horrible?Because everything is pulled back quite a bit here to almost PG-Land with most of the Elements lacking any real Deliverance.
Dennis Quaid might give this movie an interesting note, but all in all, you might find it quite uninteresting and not even worth the (kind) 5 points I gave it.
Such a film came to Dennis Quaid with Beneath The Darkness where the respected mortician of this small Texas town has an interesting sideline with some of the bodies he has.
But I always maintain that these slasher films are great because overacting is a requirement and players just have a ball with these parts.Dennis really lets it rip in Beneath The Darkness.
Dennis Quaid is always good as playing these grumpy old characters and he does a good job of playing this psychotic grumpy mortician.
Dennis Quaid plays against type as Eli a mortician with a secret, and a dark compulsion.
Although the character of Dennis Quaid's Ely doesn't meet the excellence of Kevin Costner's Mr. Brook's, Ely is still a pretty creepy weirdo, a mortician who is trying to hide the corpse of his embalmed wife, who he enjoys dancing with every night in front of the second floor window, as well as the corpse of his wife's lover.
Not a Bad film but not Great either.(Just a Fun Time waster)..
I thought this film was okay it entertained me and kept me watching and i liked all of the people in it and i thought it had a good story line and i don't understand why so many people hate this film i thought it was good for what it was and i thought all of the actors did a good job and i really liked Denis Quaid in this film he plays a creepy bad guy and i liked that role he played and i thought he played it pretty well.
He was very believable in his role as the Bad guy and i actually found him quite funny at times with some of the lines he comes out with.
The story is about three teenagers who are best friends and they are all suspicious about the man who lives alone near their street played by Denis Quaid and they go over to his house because they've all heard rumours about his house being haunted and they think a ghost lives there so they hide out in the bushes and watch him and they keep seeing strange things moving around in his house.
I thought this film was quite suspenseful and i thought the film had a good pace to it, it wasn't too fast or too slow it was just right, and like many films this film has a few flaws but they didn't bother me much because i liked the story and the characters and i found them interesting.the rest of the film is about the teenagers investigating and going into Quaids house because they think he has some secrets and i thought the story was quite interesting and mysterious, they find out in the end that the man is crazy when he kills one of their friends and then he tries to stop them from leaving his house but they all get away from him and during the rest of the film the teenagers are basically trying to prove to everyone that Dennis Quaid is Crazy and that he's a killer but no one would take them seriously so the kids do everything in their power to prove he's guilty and at the end of the film Quaid kidnaps two of the teenagers and takes them to the cemetery and i quite liked that part of the film i thought it was quite exciting and i couldn't wait to see what Quaid would do to them at the cemetery.he forces the boy to dig his own grave and he threatens to kill both of them.
I wont give away how the film ends but i will say i thought this film was okay its not Great but i liked it for what it was and yes i know the story was a little cliché at times but that didn't bother me much either, i usually don't get bothered by things like that, its only when something Major stupid happens that i get annoyed!
and i didn't find many stupid things in this film i thought it was an Average movie with okay acting and an okay performance from everyone and none of the characters annoyed me either so in my opinion this isn't a bad film and its worth a watch.
In Smithville, Texas, the teenagers Brian (Stephen Lunsford), Abby (Aimee Teegarden), Travis (Tony Oller) and Danny (Devon Werkheiser) are classmates of the Smithville High School and best friends.
One day, they are reading Macbeth for a class and they decide to investigate the rumors that the house of the mortician Ely Vaughn (Dennis Quaid) is haunted by ghosts.
Will they be successful in their intent?"Beneath the Darkness" is a totally forgettable and absurd movie full of clichés about a deranged man that lives with the corpse of his dead wife Rosemary.
Dennis Quaid is not a bad actor, but he is awfully ham with grimaces.
The main reason for me watching this movie is that I am a big fan of Dennis Quaid but his performance in this flick leaves a lot to be desired!
Quaid plays the role of the town's mortician and the audience is quickly introduced to the dark side of his character when he takes his first victim within the first few minutes.
This movie quickly went nowhere and the final minutes (especially the final words from Quaid's character) were simply ridiculous.If you have nothing better to do......still give this a miss!!.
But what ever they paid him to make this dreadful movie must have been where the 7 million budget went, hope he got all 7 million.The acting is the worst I have seen in a long time.The little blond girl is from Friday night lights and I liked her in that, if this is her idea of a career path she needs to double check her agents mental state.I have nothing good to say about this movie, don't bother.If there was a o score I would have given it a 0Sorry mr Quaid, you are a legend but this is not very ajoba (south African slang for good).
Quaids character was neat to see, movie was not.
"Help me prove he killed Danny." After thinking they saw a ghost a group of friends start to snoop around the home of local mortician Ely (Quaid).
I really liked "Mr. Brooks" and I like Dennis Quaid and seeing him play a psycho I thought would be cool.
Once again though like most movies the idea is better then the real thing.
This movie doesn't compare at all to "Mr. Brooks", but I would like to see Quaid in a better movie playing a character like this one.
Sort of like saying, "Hi, I am as original as Gothika, but I'm only famous because of Limpbizkit's remake of Behind blue eyes." Plus, when the teacher asks why Edgar Allan Poe's murderer from The- Tell-Tale Heart would be able to hear the slow beating heart beneath the planks to which he confesses to his crimes, I could not but utter the exact word which would come out of the main-character's mouth 3 seconds later - "guilt", and that is only six minutes in.2 - When the main characters best friend Danny gets pushed from the stairs and gets his neck broken from Quaid's well placed foot, there is no question about how he died.
No mention of fracture, no forensic team spotting the obvious bruise or disjointed neck, no check-up what so ever, and the teenagers are still questioned for breaking into the murderer's house, worst cops ever!.Then again, there's also at least two positive things to say about it: Even though the characters are stale, the high-school feeling is not as traumatizing as it usually portrays, and being fair to Quaid, his character is probably the only one that at least makes you smile, just for a second, although his performance is practically a clone of Jack Nicholson dancing around as the Joker from Tim Burtons: Batman.
'Beneath the Darkness' (1/10 Stars) makes me feel bad.
For instance, I feel I'm way too harsh on other movies when you see a beneath the soil film like this.
Even if Dennis Quaid should know better.
I know what doesn't lie beneath the darkness: a good movie.
Despondent and depressed over the untimely death of his sister, teenage Travis believes that the local shady mortician (played with much ham by Dennis Quaid) is responsible for her murder.
The movie is nothing we haven't seen a million times before, the acting is all right in an over the top way.
It moves to a classroom scene where the discussion is about both Poe and Macbeth...nice tie-in.Travis (Tony Oller) plays the moody teen lead who laments over his dead sister, and sometimes sees ghosts which he confides in cheerleader Abby (Aimee Teegarden).
One night some of the teens, thinking Quaid isn't home, enter his mortician residence ghost hunting, only to find he is at home and has an unhealthy relationship with his dead, embalmed, not exactly buried wife.The movie starts out like it is going to be a barn burner, then it slows and dies.Parental Guides: infrequent F-bomb, no sex or nudity..
I hate seeing a great actor like Dennis Quaid trapped in a load of crap like "Beneath the Darkness" which just diminishes his talents.
It is the "psychotic mortician" part where two teenagers (Aimee Teegarden and Tony Oller) are aware of his murder of their friend, stumbling upon a wicked secret he holds (he dances with his wife's corpse at night).
Quaid's Ely is a former star quarterback and remains a recognizable figure in his Texas town, so the kids will need to put themselves in danger in order to expose his loony ass.
You have seen this a million times, and if you are expecting the miracle of something original in "Beneath the Darkness" then you will be sorely disappointed.
When Quaid looks right at the camera at the end and repeats, "Love sucks", I think he should have said instead, "This movie sucks.".
Even if you like Dennis Quaid (which I do), even he did not make this movie worthwhile.
This 2011 thriller stars Dennis Quaid, Tony Oller and Aimee Teegarden.
Quaid (Innerspace) plays mortician, Ely Vaughn who lost his wife a 2 years prior.
After one of their friends is killed, Travis and Abby are determined to expose Ely. This isn't a bad thriller that sort of pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and "Rear Window" and Quaid is great in it.