Beneath the Darkness
Year: 2012
Director: Martin Guigui
Stars: Dennis Quaid, Tony Oller, Aimee Teegarden
Studio: Image Entertainment
MPAA Rating: R
Running Time: 96 mins
Plot Synopsis:
There are sometime that you have a feeling that a movie is going to bad, but you still have an interest considering the talent involved. That was the case with “Beneath the Darkness”.
The film follows Mr. Ely (Dennis Quaid), a funeral home director who respected in his hometown but hides a frightening secret. When Travis (Tony Oller) and his high school friends think they see ghost lurking in the top of window of Ely’s home, they decide to investigate by breaking into the house. They find something that is so chilling that it takes a murderous turn and leads them into a fight of survival, as Mr. Ely will do anything to keep his dark secret from coming out.
Film Review:
I knew that I was very skeptical about seeing and reviewing this film. What I found beneath the darkness was a movie that sucked the life out of you. This was one film where I wanted to shut the film off, but couldn’t because I had to be professional.
Everything about “Beneath the Darkness” was horrible. One of the things that made this film so bad, everything moves at a slow pace. Director Martin Guigui doesn’t do a good job making the film’s awful screenplay look mediocre. He brings no life to any of the film’s scenes, which makes the action feel dry and have no suspense to it. That what made this a very hard film to watch. It was like, I was waiting for something to happen and nothing happens until the end of the film. He doesn’t build much suspense with the way he handles those scenes. When you have no suspense, then the film suffers and your stuck with a boring film. The other thing that was so bad, the acting was awful. Guigui doesn’t do anything to make his characters stand out from one another. All these characters here felt flat and uninteresting. He makes no attempt to go against the screenplay and try to give the characters personality, instead they are flat and one dimensional. When you have characters like that, then your being bored. This is a crime, considering that he has actors like Dennis Quiad and Aimee Teegarden and he’s that giving direction that makes them either flat or too over the top. He doesn’t allow their true talents to shine here, which hurts the film.
The screenplay here was just as horrible, as the film’s direction. Screenwriter Bruce Wilkinson creates a screenplay that falls flat on every level. One of the things that I didn’t like about the screenplay, the characters were flat. These were characters had one personality to them. Often when most of your characters have one personality trait to them, it means that the characters are uninteresting and boring to watch. That was definitely the case here, as I was bored watching them. The other major grip with this screenplay was that nothing was fully developed. Case in point, I shouldn’t have to wait until the end of the film or guess to find out, why Quaid’s character is having a mental breakdown. Why wasn’t this done in the beginning of the film. When you have to wait the until the very end to find out why your villain is acting psychotic, then your not going to be interested in the character. He drops no hints, during the course of the film and that really getting me when writing these types of review. I don’t like doing it, but if your not going give me any reasons to this, then its going on rant like this.
DVD Extras:
If you thought the movie was awful, it doesn’t stop with the DVD special features. First, there is a behind the scene featurette that just captures the filming of some the scenes of the film. Sadly, there are no interviews with the cast and crew. With a grand total of four and a half minutes, why bother putting out any special features on this disc. It shows that the filmmakers cared about this, like they cared about putting a decent film together.
Final Summary:
Don’t waste your time with this film like I did. It will make you feel bored and want you to turn the film off. “Beneath the Darkness” is a film that lacks everything you want with a thriller like this. Avoid this as all costs.
Film Review: One Star
Dvd Extras: One Star
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