User reviews

Wow, what a cheesy movie this is! It starts off looking like it's gonna be a backwoods slasher, with the camera following dogs running through the woods. It then gets a bit boring and follows the story of some girls moving into some house haunted by Indian spirits. We then get plenty of shots of one partially clad girl and another naked girl in the bath. It suddenly gets really cheesy when the "Zombie Indians" arise from the earth and start terrorising the girls. We even get a samurai Indian.

This movie starts off pretty boring although I did find the story of the four Indians who buried themselves alive quite interesting. Once the Indian zombies (or whatever you want to call them for they aren't technically zombies) start terrorising the girls is when all the fun begins. This is not a special flick and can't be taken seriously, it's just something fun to watch when you're bored or when you're drinking with friends. I can't help thinking though that it would have worked better as a short story because the first half is tediously boring.

This was my first movie as "Gaffer," or Chief Lighting Technician, and boy does it show. My apologies to all viewers! Director-Producer Phil Smoot, is one of the nicest guys in the film business, however, and he constantly encouraged everyone to do their best on this little film.

One of my fondest memories was working with Lash LaRue. Lash was a consummate professional, full of great stories and patient with our inexperienced crew. I'll never forget how one night, waiting what seemed like hours for a shot to be set up, Lash just sat on an applebox, casually flipping his ever-present whip. There was a roll of toilet paper hanging from the handle of the tripod head mounted on the camera dolly. Lash would flick that whip of his, neatly tearing off one sheet of TP at a time. There was a little pile of single toilet paper sheets, steadily growing as time passed by.

Funny how little memories stay with you.

"The Dark Power" is hardly better than a student film. It makes no sense and the acting and direction is horrible. The non-stop screaming from the girls at the end becomes very annoying, and the interminable back-and-forth "whip fight" between Lash and the Toltec desperately needs editing. Otherwise it's a totally rad 80's horror-comedy flick and an interesting way to pass 120 minutes.

The location of the house is 9080 Leisure Point Lane, Belews Creek, N.C. and it still looks pretty much exactly the same, inside and out!

You like a good time with a whip? Look no further than the cheesy, but charm-ridden 80s horror "The Dark Power". What is an interesting set-up (the story's background is well-devised), eventually makes way to its ridiculous writing, low-brow dialogues and goofy, lightweight execution with a lot whip-cracking and wise-cracks ("Feel my whip you son of a b!tch") thanks to legendary B-western star Lash La Rue. Still this low- budget regional horror was lot more entertaining than it deserved to be… maybe more so unintentional, but entertaining nonetheless. Just listen to what comes out of these character's mouths… its rib-tickling (especially from the red-neck woman)… but it doesn't break loose until a good hour when our four evil Toltec zombie sorcerers come to terrorise some college coeds. For the first hour we got to listen to boring, if exaggerated exchanges, whip talk and numerous legends and theories involving the house on Totem Hill where the girls have moved into. At least you got an attractive buxom cast in Anna Lane Tatum, Mary Dalton & Cynthia Bailey. Then it turns crazy with plenty of hysterical screaming and "Benny Hill" chases, as now I don't know what was going on. You can see were most of the money went to though, as the effects are actually well staged and there is one very memorable face-lift. Too bad these zombie sorcerers looked and acted rather stooge-like, than anything truly threatening. Even watching La Rue go up against one of these sorcerers with his whip -- made out of materials from the four corners of the world was a battle of epic proportions. Watch as these two standoff as they go ahead whipping each other in turns, one a pure amateur while the other a master. Crack that whip! It was hard to tell if director/writer Phil Smoot was trying to be funny or not, but this slapdash effort is playful enough. Now that music score was like something out of an old-fashion western film… it even sounded like if someone's mobile was going off.

Wow... I suspected this one to be bad... But now I find myself just at a loss for words... Honestly, no words of mine can do this movie any justice...

I'll try to say something anyway...

This truly is one unique gem. One of the worst kind.

Lash La Rue - given his background as an actor - doing a whip-fight with a Toltec sorcerer-zombie during the movie's climax...??? A true stroke of genius, without a doubt.

It rarely happens that I laugh out loud when watching a movie alone. It happened numerous times with this one.

The accents of the actors, man, the accents... And the dialogues I heard them speak... And the acting itself... I just couldn't believe what I was hearing.

That fat uncle farting so loudly (when walking up to the house together with his little nephew) for no apparent reason whatsoever...

Tits! Yes, there's titties! And female ass! There's even a naked chick in a bathtub sipping a beer...

That one "stretch his mouth over his face"-kill was the bomb! A true highlight.

The comedy-aspects were just totally bonkers. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. For a while I even thought that they were unintentional, shaking my head in disbelief. But about halfway in the movie, I started to get the bigger picture. Guess it took me half a movie to dumb-down half of my brain, to finally get it.

I had a really hard time believing this movie... But it's good, really, I think. It had one black chick walking up to a very tiny cupboard, opening it and then saying "Wooow, look at all the storage space!". And she said it like she meant it. I mean, that's good dialogue and good acting, right?

Oh, and perhaps needless to say: Lash La Rue's whip-skills suck major ass in THE DARK POWER. It's really sad and pathetic to behold. That's all part of the comedy, of course. Or wait, I might be wrong. No, yes, I'm wrong. Lash La Rue was amazing with the whip! It was the editor's fault. He messed it up, cutting his lashes together and all. Or wait, it might have been the camera operator. He filmed from the wrong angles... Then why didn't Phil Smoot say anything? That's it, it's the director's fault.

But it's a good movie.

I'm just gonna quit talking about it. I have nothing meaningful to say anyway, except for the fact that I hope my brain will recover from this experience... some time soon.

A total and utter travesty of a movie.'Dark power'is the kind of film even troma would be embarrassed to release.The script,direction,acting and action sequence's are so dire as to be almost painful to watch and one cant help thinking that it's mere 75 minute running time could have been better spent. The above reviewer must be related to the director as that's the only reason i can see for his/her appraisal of this rubbish,some might call it b-movie fun or 'so bad it's good' just to excuse there enjoyment of it,but when the lead actor ( and most experienced cast member) cant deliver his lines convincingly you know you've got a very,very bad movie.Avoid at all costs.

There's no use belaboring all that's wrong with this movie, as it is pretty much everything and other reviewers have already done so. Instead, I want to champion this mess as it strikes points in the entertainment department, which is what counts. And the "Toltecs" don't really look that bad-not that good, but not that bad or at least about as good as Neon Maniacs. The attempts at humor are definitely the worst thing about it, though, as generally horror and comedy are a tough mix and hardly anyone ever gets it right. A nice study in 80's interior decorating, as well.

I must say that I am an *INSTANT* fan of DARK POWER, an EVIL DEAD inspired bit of regionally produced horror hokum masquerading as a teen schlock craptacular. But as usual with medium to low budget movies that have not been messed around with by a studio looking to reap a profit there is more to this than may first meet the eye. The film's plot concerns itself with a group of genuinely unlikeable morons who move into a house formerly owned by a descendant of "Toltec and Aztec" shamans that is on the site of a former burial ground, or repository of ancient Native American artifacts. Offense is given to the tribal gods when one of the losers turns out to be a scab who leaves the seat up when taking a leak, invites his pathetic friends over for a beer party, and his snot rag sister starts giving the black chick in the movie racist trash. Either that or those gods are just being nasty for the hell of it.

It moves quickly: There is a local sheriff with some sort of mystical whip played by B-movie Western Whip King Lash La Rue, maniacal doggies (more like poochies: they are cute for killer wild dogs) who attack local fat kids wandering through the woods, a fat handyman dressed up like Meatloaf who's kid manages to blow up his truck, the losers run out of beer, and then out of nowhere come four re-incarnated Aztec warriors dressed up in castoff K-Mart hockey gear who butcher everyone in the house to pay them back for not having any Cheez-Whiz. In other words this is one of those movies made for people with really short attention spans that does not rely on plot to get it's message across, which is that Injun ghost warriors are nasty, mean, and kill people in surprisingly creative manners. My favorite was the chick who gets an arrow right between the eyes, but there are varieties of carnage that will likely please any hacker fan -- though be advised that DARK POWER's budget amounted to about one good semester at graduate school and the effects may not please fans of the animated computer cartoon horror hits of today, which genuinely suck compared to imaginative, well-meaning and bankrupt projects such as this. A sub-plot involving a foxy local reporter's inappropriate flirtations with the local teen book nerd doesn't go anywhere, but there's plenty of offbeat carnage, some enjoyable T&A, plenty of beer for everyone, and some appropriately tasteless humor that is funny for all the wrong reasons. This movie is an applied study in poor taste, but somehow it works.

The film also throws a few curve balls at viewers with some unexpected social commentary, such as the scene where one of the Injun Zombies decides to sample some of the snack food, condiments and booze stacked up in the kitchen. Then there is the scene where one of the losers from the beer party is being massacred and the snot-rag sister comes out of the bathroom clad in only a towel screaming at the morons to KEEP IT DOWN! I also liked the racial dynamic with the black girl, who sort of becomes one of the heroes and who's tolerance of the white trash (one of them even has a Confederate flag hung prominently in his room: cute) crackers is nothing short of admirable. The film is also strangely comfortable with it's Regional Horror look & nature, and we may have coined a new term here.

REGIONAL HORROR: Low budget, semi or outright independent thrillers from the 1970s - 1980s filmed in places like Miami, Omaha, Richmond, and St. Louis that eschewed gloss for a kind of droll wallowing in everyday suburbia, featuring everyday plain Jane actors who are cast for their ordinariness rather than traits attributable to a manufactured freak like Tom Cruise or Angelina Jolie that has no identity outside of their industry. These are everyday people, non-actors with maybe some community theater experience, called up by a director who needed a cast for a movie, offered a couple hundred dollars for a few day's shootings and usually got more than they're money's worth when compared to the baloney performances of someone like Mr. Cruise. Regional Horror features existing locations as sets like people's homes, their backyards, maybe a stretch of woods on public land, and is usually comprised of images & scenes that blue collar slobs like ourselves would otherwise see every day of our lives.

The ultimate example would probably be CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (or NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, for that matter) but see also HOUSE OF THE DEAD/THE ALIEN ZONE, KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, FIEND, DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, DON'T GO IN THE WOODS ALONE and other movies with the word DON'T in their title, and I would rank DARK POWER right up there with any of those as a movie that amounted to more than the sum of it's parts, and turned out far, far better than it probably had to.

8/10, and I mean it.

I had a blast watching this B movie concoction of angry Indians, sorority girls, and of course the whip action of Lash LaRue. The production values of the film add to the experience of creating that unique feeling that only a low-budget indie with a lot of passion behind it can bring. I believe this is a second film for director Phil Smoot, Alien Outlaw being the other. I think this film was shot in North Carolina. It has that feel to it, sort of like the films shot in Texas having their own look. It looks like 16mm or super16, but the transfer is of good quality. The sound mix, being from 16mm, is pretty good. Overall, i would recommend this film for cult film addicts. The sorority girl being chased through the tall grass is worth the purchase alone.

Okay, this is a mid-80's movie about the spirits of the dead returning to have their revenge on the living. So you pretty much expect cheesy-looking zombies who have no consistency in their behaviour, a bunch of stupid, screaming college students who are only there as splat-fodder, leaving the (mildly) more likable ones behind to be saved in the nick of time by a hugely unlikely hero, who utters the line "I'm getting too old for this" at least once. You also expect some pretty gory moments where hands and heads come off and blood stains the grass, and cringe-worthy dialogue like "Die, you corpse!"...and, you get it with this movie XD.

The only real complaint is that the Zombies are not really zombies, they are just menacing undead creatures who run around with sharp weapons (well, two of them do, the other two just run around and fumble at their victims while making dubbed grunt/moan noises) and kill people. This is a pretty good splatter movie to kill a hour or so with i suppose. You even see some titties!, and it features a similar racial theme to "Night of the living dead", except handled much more clumsily, with all the subtlety you would expect from an 80's splatter flick. Great viewing all round, but don't pay more than £6!

Tally (yeah, i decided to incorporate this in all my reviews): Sex: 1/10, Drugs: 0/10, Rock 'n roll: 2/10, Zombies: 7/10, Classic cars: 0/10, Splatter: 6/10

I was actually an extra in this movie in several scenes. As a 15 year old was a blast and experience. Got to watch some of the nude scenes filmed..great experience. :-P

A group of unsuspecting college coeds move into the house on Totem Hill,a cursed place where four Toltec Sorcerers buried themselves hundreds of years ago-alive and still breathing!On the coming of the Evil Days,the ancient demons arise to feed on the living.Now only one old Ranger with a whip played by western veteran Lash LaRue-fashioned out of materials from the four quarters of the world-stands between the girls and the mystical zombies from the past."The Dark Power" is clearly Phil Smoot's answer to Raimi's "The Evil Dead" with an isolated house,resurrected bloodthirsty demons and lots of POV camera-work in the woods.What surprised me the most are the racist remarks of several characters.The Confederate flag also pops up with alarming frequency.The four Indian monsters are fun to watch and there is a bit of gore including the scene where a man's head is torn apart.Lash LaRue is great with a non-sexual whip action.It's really a shame that the first 45 minutes are so criminally boring.A generous 6 out of 10.

DARK POWER is very kewl,cheesy good fun.This reminds me of Saturday mornings of my youth,cartoons like Lash Larue(oops,he lived) were great escape. DP brings that back to my soul.Heard Phil Smoot kind of made sequel called Alien Outlaw,but only released it to Europe...Hmm.