Best movie ever!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Blistering performances.

I am a fan of horror movies and this includes everything from Hollywood to low budget and grade B horror flicks.In the Dark, while done on a very low budget with actors and actresses that are not widely-known, was excellent in my opinion. Before I bought the movie, I read the back of it (as per usual) and I liked the idea of the abandoned insane asylum. This might be due to the fact that I am an avid ghost hunter with a locally known group. But the film was done with the same concepts as, "The Blair Witch Project", "The Saint Francisville Experiment", and "Paranormal Activity". And I love this kind of film. The jerky, real motion cameras moving about makes you feel like you are in the movie. The acting (although not top notch well-known actors and actresses) was great in my opinion. When I go ghost hunting, we aren't actors. We record some stupid things, but it's all good. Not every movie out there has to be of the highest budget and made for Hollywood. Some of the best films are the lower budget like the ones that I have mentioned above. Who cares if it is a fictitious documentary, what do you think most of Hollywood movies are? Kudo's to those who made this film! LeAnn Jones

Count me as one who loves the whole documentary sub-genre of horror created by "Cannibal Holocaust" and made popular more recently by both "The Blair Witch Project" and "The Last Broadcast." Though not a huge explosion of these types of films have popped up, there is a handful out there, such as "Strawberry Estates," "The St. Francisville Experiment," and "The Collingswood Story." These films attempt to frighten the audience by giving them a unique perspective of witnessing the events of the plot unfold through the eyes of a character's own camera lense or, in some cases (such as here), a security camera. Additionally, these films often advertise themselves as being "real, authentic footage!" when in fact, any viewer with any brains knows differently. Often times, these films are able to create adequate suspense and uneasiness. Unfortunately, this is not one of those instances and is really a smear and insult to its much better predecessors."In the Dark" presents itself as "real" footage of the events that take place when a group of teenagers break into an abandoned, burned asylum, where years before, a few of them did *something* (raped?) to a female inmate that left her scarred after they started a fire to cover their crime. The footage is presented dually through the camera lense of one of the teens and through security cameras present in and outside the building. Why does a abandoned asylum that is barely standing because of fire damage need security cameras you ask? Well, you're guess is as good as mine and that is just one of many things wrong with this film. You see, viewers are to believe that the girl inmate who was picked on knows that these teens are in this abandoned asylum on Halloween night, is able to escape her current institution and come to seek her revenge. She is presented here are sorta of a cross between a possessed Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" and a zombie from the "Dawn of the Dead" remake, which is puzzling considering she is supposedly just a burn victim. Better (or worse) yet, she is able to smuggle of few other inmates out of her facility to help scare the crap out of the teens. You'd think, since money was invested to have working security cameras in the decrepit asylum, that the security would have been a hell of a lot better at the new one! Apparently not....apparently no security cameras at the new asylum captured a few of the inmates walking out to go wreak havoc next door.The film's main flaw is the fact that is is extremely boring and filled with extremely bad actors who are portraying annoying characters we could give a crap less about. We are subjected to long scenes of one of the more annoying characters filming himself make rude comments and mock his equally annoying mother, and act like a total retard detailing his plan to sneak out while his mother is fast asleep behind him in the couch. This scene has to be seen to be believed and my jaw was dropped at the ridiculousness I was witnessing. Long scenes of virtually nothing happening are presented as apparently the director's idea of suspense; characters whine and fight with each other and sort of act scared, but for some reason never all just decide to group together and leave the place. After all, there was about 9 of them and only one "killer." Again, nothing about these characters is even remotely interesting and I really just wanted them all to die. The film also feels about 20 minutes too long and the pacing is just horrid. I really really had to stop my self from hitting the fast forward button on my DVD remote, or worse yet, just ejecting the damn thing altogether."The Blair Witch Project" worked because it felt real. The acting was superb and there was no ridiculous plot elements that felt fake. Everything the viewer saw and heard looked and felt authentic and it was scary as hell. This film feels fake. There is no suspense because some of the things that unfold (particularly the ending) are so implausible that it is an insult to viewers. I only hope that the filmmakers really did not expect people to believe this was "real" footage because they failed miserable. Avoid this borefest at all costs.FrightMeter Grade: F

You would think it would be easy to make a move set in an insane asylum scary, but for some reason movie makers have had trouble with this. Dark Asylum was horrible, Session 9 was pretty good, and this movie is somewhere in the middle.This movie borrows very heavily from Blair Witch, but that doesn't automatically make it bad. It's a legitimate way to make a scary movie on a low budget, and budgets don't get much lower than this.I don't have a problem with the acting; the problem is most of the characters are very generic, and some of the writing is awful ("You're not my friend anymore!"). Also this movie is set in the 80's for some inexplicable reason which makes it all the more cheesy.Just forget about the plot... it doesn't make any sense, the "twist" ending is rendered completely ineffective by the inability of the writers to make us give a crap about what's going on.The main thing that this movie does well is provide some creepy shots. Again, they use the Blair Witch idea of home movie cameras and throws in security camera footage to pretty good effect.This would be a decent student movie, but if you're expecting the competence that normally comes with "real" movie you will be disappointed.

The plot is original and the camera shots are amazing. I'm still not sure if it is all real footage like the director says it is in the beginning of the film. If this is actual footage then it is pretty amazing stuff. I heard that at least some of the film is the actual footage from the real events. Either way, it is awesome. Each scene is dream-like and disturbing at the same time. The way the film is edited is wild. My favorite scenes in the film are the scenes in the crazy house and the silent scenes with the surveillance cameras! CREEPY! Plus, the rock-n-roll music rocks. This is one of my favorite horror films now. It will be a cult classic, no doubt. Trippy film! Loved it.