Slipping Into Darkness

My review was written in February 1989 after watching the film on Virgin Vision video cassette.

A youth-themed film noir in the new genre initiated by "River's Edge", "Slipping into Darkness" is an interesting near-miss that ultimately becomes too cute for its own good.

Picture opened theatrically in limited fashion last November and is en route to video stores.

Michelle Johnson, Anastasia Fielding and Cristen Kauffman portray three spoiled, rich college girls in Nebraska who run afoul of hero John DiAquino when they kid around with his slow-witted brother (Neill Barry in a small but tellint role). Johnson (whose dad is the college's dean) accidentally hit the kid's dog with her Mercedes and when Barry is found dead at the railroad tracks, DiAquino sets out with the aid of his biker pals (Vyto Ruginis and David Sherrill) for revenge.

Filmmaker Eleanor Gaver bears down accurately on social class resentment and small-town provincialism well in pic's first half, but it trails off into kinky bondage motifs as the have-nots kidnap the heroines to punish them. Final reel is loaded with unconvincing revelations (flashbacks providing alternae information on the boy's death) and dubious plot twists ranging from incest to a surprising homicidal maniac.

Johnson is an effective anti-heroine and contrasting newcomers Fielding (extremely tall) and Kauffman also make distinctive impressions. Of the male protagonists, Vyto Ruginis' mannered performance is tough to take.

Years ago, I owned a video store and I took this home one night to watch it.

This is the worst movie I have ever seen on video -- illogical; poorly acted, written, directed and produced -- this belongs in a massive garbage heap at the very bottom!

Michelle Johnson has never been known for her quality acting choices, probably due to the fact that she is a beautiful girl who cannot act her way INTO a paper bag, let alone OUT of one!

I strongly advise anyone reading this to run as fast as you can from this stinker!

To me, this movie looks like the type of flick that came out of an instance where someone saw "River's Edge" and loved it so much that it inspired them to try to make a similar movie. That said, this movie isn't as bad as it could be while it isn't as good as it should be. In it, three teen girls (two snobby, spoiled ones and one humane, shy one) end up getting the blame placed on them for the death of a mentally retarded guy. The police aren't about to do a whole lot, and the dead guy's brother is so distraught and angry that, without any true hard proof, he gets some ex-biker buddies together to go along with him to a museum during a school field trip, where they persuade the chicks to come with them to an old factory. There's a pretty aggressive interrogation, but nothing really happens at all. As they're about to let the girls go, they start splitting up and having one-on-one situations. One of those situations isn't so friendly, though, and the most warped biker out of the bunch ends up choking one of the girls to death in a graveyard. Then, everybody left goes on the run as the killer's sanity continues to unravel up until a surprisingly gory scene that I feel compelled to believe was ripped-off in that 2001 "Joy Ride" movie. Then you've got your betrayals and things to this nature as people turn on each other in order to either find out the truth about the retarded kid's death, or to keep it hidden. I found this movie mildly entertaining, but some parts (including the ending and the title song that they play throughout the film) were just damn irritating. This really is the kind of movie where the insane killer seems more human than everyone else (even more than that aforementioned nice, shy girl), and that doesn't seem altogether intentional here. Now, let me make it clear that I've seen movies much worse than this because, as I said, it's not terrible. At the same time, I find it the easiest to rate with stars the movies that are just of fair quality, no more, no less. I could easily rate this with three stars at the generous most.

this movie is not as bad as the above rating might lead you to believe. it's not that good either, but is just an average ultra low budget thriller. one thing it does have going for it is the cinematography, which a much better then the standard, follow the characters around only, type stuff you usually see. however the director clearly had big ambitions, but was unable to hold the movie together, and as a result the entire film feels wrong somehow, like a piece is missing. anyway i wouldn't highly reccomend it, but at least it manages to be interesting.

This movie is deplorable. As the title suggests, the movie slips into darkness, together with many other unknown bad movies. Even the character names are third-rate.

The only thing that caught my interest is the poor dog that appears a few times in the movie - first it gets hit by a car, then it is abandoned in the middle of nowhere. Unless you enjoy watching really bad movies -the kind that you would only find at some forsaken corner of a very small and dirty video store-, I recommend you stay away from this one.

2/10