Domain of the Damned

A drifter, looking for work and troubled by dreams, stumbles onto a haunted house amusement that's a lot more real than anyone suspects.

One monster/psycho not enough for you? This is your flick.

The acting by these folks is a lot better than that of the teeny-bopper victims by the truckload so many horror films have. For an indie film, the special effects, monsters and gore ROCK.

Yes, this film's got flaws and it could have been 15-20 minutes shorter, but I've seen a lot worse acting, crappier special effects and dumber story lines in a LOT of major-budget horror films. It's not the same old same old and if you're a horror buff, you should watch it.

Okay, first off. I'm willing to give any independent feature film a chance. I know going in that time, money and just resources are at a low for the director and his crew. But this was a waste of almost two hours of my time. Number one on my list is the story. What? There was no "story". It felt like a bunch of random ideas put into a film. This made it hard to follow, it made the characters so indistinguishable I couldn't remember any of their names, and it made me wonder what the hell the writer/director was thinking. As far as the visual look of the film, I won't go so far as to call it terrible (at least the camera is in focus...) but the constant changing of the look (from red to green then back to read then back to normal) was migraine inducing. This also made it hard to follow the action. The practical effects were good but this does not save your movie. The CGI on the other hand falls into the bad Sci-Fi Channel realm. I give the director tons of credit for getting his film made. But there is no excuse for this. This films falls into the same category as a lot of other low budget features of directors reaching higher than their budget will allow them to go. Keep it simple, keep it direct and c'mon man keep me entertained enough to where maybe I'll forgive some of the poorer aspects of your film. But this does not have any redeeming factor. Not even that great B-movie cheese. Do yourself a favor and pass on this flick.

Domain of the Damned is a seriously intense story. Visually it's awesome on every level.

The cast is incredibly talented. I don't remember seeing any of them before. If this is their first time acting experience then I'll say two things: They had a really good director to pull this large of a cast together to make such a good film. That and that's a lot of natural talent in that pool.

The f/x work beautifully. THe CG blends well with the practical. In a lot of independent film the CG tends to be flat and not seamless with the practical. And the make up f/x, prosthetics, and creatures are all incredibly well done and are simply not the stuff of low budget fare.

Next I have to comment on the props. Stacy and his crew did a fantastic job on prop design. The reaper serial killers reaper tool is sinister as hell. The books with the mythology and legend all looked really good. Nothing looked cheap and out of place. And the wardrobe was insanely beautiful. The Seven are awesome characters in wardrobe and should merchandised in action figure format.

The widescreen DVD looks beautiful on my 42" (small I know) Sony hi-def even though it's not hi-def DVD or blu-ray. The audio is crystal clear and perfect on every channel throughout the film. You won't find background noise, hum, buzz, or hiss (or at least not on my Denon 5.1 with Sony Surround Speakers).

The use of color throughout the film and lighting through the film works in every case. It continuously adds to the creepiness that is this film whether it's dark, red, green, strobed, or really bright.

I am impressed and really happy that our support for indie film drove us to buy the film. I am not typically a mythology creature feature kind of guy, but my wife Dione has always had a soft spot for that sort of film. I like my horror much more "real-life" i.e. the A.R.T. genre. However that's neither here nor there -- this film is one of the best mythological creature features I've seen. I think maybe if more films like this existed I'd be more into it. Lovecraftian doesn't really begin to describe DoD. I don't think Barker could write a story this awesome.

With millions of dollars at their disposal the major studios continue to disappoint while the indie filmmaker continues to impress.