Darkness

Leif Jonker's DARKNESS is a mixed bag.

The nomadic vampire Liven (Randall Aviks) wanders from town to town, creating havoc (and vampires) wherever he goes. Hot on his trail is Toby (Gary Miller), a sole-survivor of one of Liven's murderous rampages. Hellbent on destroying him (as well as any other vampire he happens to come across), Toby bands together with a group of teens from the latest town to fall victim to Liven's carnage.

That's about it for the plot, but that's not really the point of this film. It's more of an excuse for flashy camerawork and excessively gory effects. This is where the strength of this film lies.

The biggest problem with this film is the lighting (or the lack thereof!). The film is aptly named DARKNESS, since most of the time you can't tell what's going on! There are numerous scenes where there's just enough light to make out the image on screen, but not much else. The film would've definitely benefited from a few extra lights!

Although none of the youthful cast give spectacular performances (most of them seem to just be making up their lines as they scream frantically at each other), but within the context of the film, the actors do a decent enough job. Randall Aviks isn't as menacing as he tries to be. He looks more like a heavy-metal groupie than a vampire, but his scenes are minimal, so his presence isn't totally annoying.

The main attraction in DARKNESS is the gore, and it spills by the gallon! They're impressively done and they're graphic, as well as plentiful!

Jonker does his best to overcome his technical limitations to create a pretty cool little film, creating some memorable and haunting images - especially at the gruesome climax!

I'd like to see Jonker do something else, but I guess he's fallen off the planet. I've read reports in Fangoria that he was working on a film entitled "The Demon Machine". Anybody know anything about this? Hopefully Jonker will put together another project soon. If DARKNESS is any indication of his talent, he may very well have a promising career (provided that he invests in some more light kits).

Okay, before I start my review, I would like to make something unmistakably clear, DO NOT BELIEVE ANYONE WHO SAYS THAT THIS MOVIE IS AS GORY OR GORIER THAN DEAD ALIVE AKA BRAINDEAD!!! The amount of gore in this movie was highly disappointing, save for one long vampire melting sequence near the end, there are some stabbings, some bitings, a lot of off-screen stuff, maybe two or three actual on screen deaths. There was actually so little gore in the movie that I stopped thinking of this movie as a gore film and started looking at it as an '80s style B-horror movie, and it actually was entertaining in that aspect. Nevertheless, there are still several other little things in this movie to bug you and/or get on your nerves. Including but not limited to:

• The vampires... or zombies... or both,... Yah, I'm not really sure what they were.

• In the first part of the movie, the film constantly cuts from "19 minutes to sunset" to "2 minutes to sunrise" to "23 minutes to sunset" and so on and so on and so on. It does this a LOT, sometimes with nothing happening in between.

Cut to two minutes before sunset, guy sits in his car, cut to twenty minutes before sunrise.

It's just really unnecessary.

• There's one scene where a guy is being eaten by vampire-zombies in a car wash, while his girlfriend stands a couple feet away and screams "No!". We then see him being eaten for a while, and cut back to the girl still standing there, probably meaning she was just standing and watching the whole time.

• The acting is really not that good to be honest, it didn't really bother me any, but there are probably a lot of people that will be bothered by it, so I thought I should bring that up.

• Almost the entire soundtrack is heavy metal, whether that is a good or bad thing depends on the viewer. I personally liked it myself.

Also, the movie is called "Darkness - The Vampire Version". OK, so there's another version? I thought it was just rough translation but according to the credits that list credits for "both versions" of the movie, I could be wrong. I wonder if the other version has more gore.

There is apparently a VHS version and a digitally remastered DVD version with less gore but with some "spit and polish" applied to it like in the American unrated version of Dead Alive. I really don't know which one I watched, I don't think it would make much of a difference either way.

6.5/10

A vampire movie like no other. Leif Jonker should be praised for his attempts to drag the vampire genre out of the terrible goth phase its currently lingering in.

A well written plot combines with great gore and some genuinely terrifying scenes to make a great movie. The sense of menace and terror is never far from the screen, and the end is truly horrific

Leif Jonker's micro-budgeted horror film "Darkness" has absolutely nothing new or special to offer, but it's still very much recommended to gorehounds because of the amazing enthusiasm and energy our director brings to the screen! This guy obviously is a big horror fanatic and he merely just wanted to express his passion by making his very own gory indie-flick! The story can be summarized in two lines: a bunch of young metal kids return home from a concert, only to discover that their entire community was killed by a ravenous vampire. They decide to stay to avenge their relatives and join forces with another teenager who saw his friends getting massacred in a convenience store. That's it! The rest simply involves extremely filthy set pieces and extraordinary gory make-up effects! Jonker occasionally brings genuine tension and there even are some truly ingenious camera shots to admire! The acting's pretty good, especially considering all the cast members are inexperienced friends of the director, and the OTT gruesome climax is particularly enjoyable. Really not that bad.

The only thing darker than darkness, is Leif Jonker's Darkness. If you haven't seen this and are frustrated by the fact that all the good low-budget horror movies were made before the 90's, then you are in for quite a treat. Darkness is raw, untampered with horror, in it's purest form, relying on only the necessary elements of horror, well, that and a few dozen gallons of blood. The result is nothing short of apocalyptic. If there's a better "shot on video" movie than this, anywhere, I'd love to see it.

When this nightmarish masterpiece begins, we don't know where this takes place, or when, all we know is that there is something to run from and all we can see, other than some guy running, is Darkness. The rant we hear from this guy, when he arrives at the gas station, makes you think the world could be ending, nope, it's only a vampire. Liven soon invades the gas station, and he takes all their blood for himself, except the guys friend, Toby, who gets away. Getting away, only to stop some of the carnage by killing the ones, in his town that Liven has killed and converted, before it's too late. Toby meets up with some teenagers who have lost their families to all the pitch black madness. Together, they go out into the darkness to stop some of this, and maybe track down Liven and put an end to this, once and for all.

If any of that sounds appealing at all, you'll be thrilled to know that Darkness is probably the third or fourth goriest film in history. Another thing Darkness has going for it is a chilling score that will literally make you shiver. This movie gives you a dismal, hopeless feeling, as if all is truly lost, that these people are fighting the vampires for nothing. The gun shots even sound like thunder. I assume very little lighting was used on purpose, because it adds so much to the horror quality, and never mind the movie is called Darkness. Darkness is a masterpiece of horror, B-horror, or just film-making all together.

Now, on to the The Vampire Version. In my view, you can't fix what is not broke, swaying from the original vision is no way to treat a masterpiece. Although the Original Version is a masterpiece, the Vampire Version is still, at the very least, a damn fine horror movie. What truly makes the original so much better is the score, it's a much better fit, it adds that extra hopelessness, the new music belongs in something totally different. Are you serious? I don't want to know that it's 37 minutes till sunrise, this version lacks the aura of mystery that the original possessed. Also, the Vampire Version is too cleaned up, pristine, and colorful, whats good for Hollywood trash isn't necessarily good for indy horror, considering all that, I still give The Vampire Version 10/10.

Now, back to The original Version. I love this movie, Leif Jonker's Darkness is my all-time favorite horror film, it's what so many others were always going for, but only one guy got it right. Hopefully, Jonker will get the sequels right, although, somehow I doubt it, a black diamond like this only comes around once in a lifetime, although Im sure Vampire Ferox & Vampire Apocalypse will be awesome. Frankly, I'm getting awfully impatient. I first heard abut the sequels 2 years ago, and still, nothing. I suppose I can see how someone could mistake some of the genius of Darkness as slow, or boring, there's certain parts that you just don't know what's going on, but, that's just part of the mystery. If your'e sick of the same old "normal", big-budget horror, then you might not hate Darkness. I give the darkest film in existence, The Original Version 10/10.