Dark Ride
2.5/4
Starring: Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Alex Solowitz, Andrea Bogart, Jennifer Tisdale, David Clayton Rogers, Patrick Renna
Rated R for Strong Grisly Horror Violence and Gore, Sexuality, Nudity, Language and Some Drug Content
Earlier this year, I went to my first "real" haunted house. It was fun, and it had a much bigger budget than the Dark Ride in this movie, but it wasn't very scary. It overdid the monsters and the effects (all of which were "cool" but not scary) to the point where it was overkill. The movie "Dark Ride" is the same way. It's a pretty cool concept for a slasher movie, but the level of violence and gore is so extreme that it becomes a turn off.
Twenty years ago, two young girls went on the Dark Ride and didn't come out. Both were gruesomely murdered by a hulking serial killer. To make matters worse, more than a dozen bodies were found in the ride, and the Dark Ride was closed for good. Now, it's about to be re-opened, and a group of college students think that it'll be fun to spend the night there on their way to New Orleans. Of course, history has a way of repeating itself.
The acting varies, although thespian ability has never been a trademark of the genre (after all, no one watches a movie like this expecting something from Merchant/Ivory). Lead actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler is pretty bad as Cathy. Based on what I've seen of her, Sigler can't act. Ditto for Jennifer Tisdale, who plays the token blonde Liz. David Clayton Rogers is invisible as Cathy's maybe-boyfriend Steve. More interesting are Andrea Bogar (who plays Jen the hitchhiker), Alex Solowitz (who plays the frat-boy stoner Jim) and movie-loving Bill (Patrick Renna...Ham Porter all growed up).
I liked the premise of the movie. After all, it is pretty ironic to have a horror movie set in a haunted ride. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really deliver. It is intense and it is scary, but there's something about the way it was made made me a little depressed. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the gore, which was sickeningly extreme. Maybe it was just watching helpless men and women struggle to survive a run-in with a particularly brutal serial killer. I'm not sure.
Aside from that, the movie has some pretty serious problems. The editing is at times awkward, which makes things confusing. Director Craig Singer also doesn't do a good job of setting the stage. I rarely knew where everyone and everything was. He also has the tendency to show-off, particularly when he's trying to show how the characters are reacting to the stress of their situation. It's more than a little self-indulgent and not at all convincing.
I was mulling over the idea to give a tentative recommendation to the film, but then I saw the ending. In short, it doesn't work at all. It doesn't make any sense and leave the plot hanging wide open. Some movies do well with open-endings, but typically slasher movies aren't among them.
Nice try, though.
Starring: Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Alex Solowitz, Andrea Bogart, Jennifer Tisdale, David Clayton Rogers, Patrick Renna
Rated R for Strong Grisly Horror Violence and Gore, Sexuality, Nudity, Language and Some Drug Content
Earlier this year, I went to my first "real" haunted house. It was fun, and it had a much bigger budget than the Dark Ride in this movie, but it wasn't very scary. It overdid the monsters and the effects (all of which were "cool" but not scary) to the point where it was overkill. The movie "Dark Ride" is the same way. It's a pretty cool concept for a slasher movie, but the level of violence and gore is so extreme that it becomes a turn off.
Twenty years ago, two young girls went on the Dark Ride and didn't come out. Both were gruesomely murdered by a hulking serial killer. To make matters worse, more than a dozen bodies were found in the ride, and the Dark Ride was closed for good. Now, it's about to be re-opened, and a group of college students think that it'll be fun to spend the night there on their way to New Orleans. Of course, history has a way of repeating itself.
The acting varies, although thespian ability has never been a trademark of the genre (after all, no one watches a movie like this expecting something from Merchant/Ivory). Lead actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler is pretty bad as Cathy. Based on what I've seen of her, Sigler can't act. Ditto for Jennifer Tisdale, who plays the token blonde Liz. David Clayton Rogers is invisible as Cathy's maybe-boyfriend Steve. More interesting are Andrea Bogar (who plays Jen the hitchhiker), Alex Solowitz (who plays the frat-boy stoner Jim) and movie-loving Bill (Patrick Renna...Ham Porter all growed up).
I liked the premise of the movie. After all, it is pretty ironic to have a horror movie set in a haunted ride. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really deliver. It is intense and it is scary, but there's something about the way it was made made me a little depressed. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the gore, which was sickeningly extreme. Maybe it was just watching helpless men and women struggle to survive a run-in with a particularly brutal serial killer. I'm not sure.
Aside from that, the movie has some pretty serious problems. The editing is at times awkward, which makes things confusing. Director Craig Singer also doesn't do a good job of setting the stage. I rarely knew where everyone and everything was. He also has the tendency to show-off, particularly when he's trying to show how the characters are reacting to the stress of their situation. It's more than a little self-indulgent and not at all convincing.
I was mulling over the idea to give a tentative recommendation to the film, but then I saw the ending. In short, it doesn't work at all. It doesn't make any sense and leave the plot hanging wide open. Some movies do well with open-endings, but typically slasher movies aren't among them.
Nice try, though.
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