Darkroom

My review was written in July 1990 after watching the movie on Quest Entertainment video cassette.

Slasher film "Darkroom" starts well but sputters once the killer's identity has been revealed midstream. Direct-to-video feature is merely okay for target fans.

Best thing here is the opening credits sequence, imaginatively using frames of film to display the title cards as if magnified.

Film proper has a maniacal killer preying on victims in a family setting and taking photographs of same. Incest is the key plot gimmick as a childhood trauma solves the mystery.

As long as the characters and suspects are introduced in opening reels and the killer is confined to stalking footage, the film holds up, but once the cat's out of the bag it becomes boring. Finale has two characters thought to be dead bouncing back for a hokey fight.

No-name cast is game.

'Darkroom' is a film I'm going to forget in an instant. This is simply not memorable, or believable.

The director lacks vision, and as a result the characters are two-dimensional and the events hard to swallow. The film revolves around Janet, who visits her parents' farm. Along for the ride, is her boyfriend, Steve - a photographer.

As it turns out, someone is taking pictures of the family members, and then killing them. The acting wasn't too great, and - as mentioned - nothing here was believable. It is a B-movie to watch only if there's nothing else to watch. It serves as a who dunnit murder mystery, but just not interesting enough.

'Darkroom' is a forgettable 80's horror movie.

Would I watch it again? No.

I picked up an old and dusty VHS copy of "Darkroom" at a nearby video store that was shutting down, and I actually even hesitated to spend 0,50€ on it. The synopsis and the cover image on the box – same one as illustrated here on the website – made it look like yet another cheap late 80's erotic thriller with a plot like there are thirteen in a dozen and a handful of tame & tedious soft-core sex sequences. I bought the VHS after all and can't say I regret it very much. Of course it is a predictable and largely inept attempt at making a slasher movie, but hey, at least it contains a few interesting elements and it didn't bore me to death. The plot is relatively simple and straightforward. Janet (an amazingly hot 80's babe) and her boyfriend Steve (a imbecilic mullet-guy who desperately wants to look like Patrick Swayze in "Dirty Dancing") are home at the isolated family farm to spend a weekend together. The farm homes Janet's mother, her two sisters, her grandfather and two cousins. Janet's father as well as her aunt and uncle mysteriously died in a fire several years ago. The only neighbors that live close to the family has been butchered by a maniac during the opening sequences of the film and now Janet's youngest sister Paula is missing. When they discover her mutilated body, they know there's a maniac killer amongst them. The climax of the film and the identity of the killer are perhaps too easy to predict, but "Darkroom" compensates the lack of originality through openly hinting at some clichéd taboo- subjects like incest, family feud and voyeurism. As the title suggests, the killer photographs all of his/her victims before, during and after the process of murdering them. The body count is also quite a lot higher than in other contemporary slasher flicks. And, even though most of the actual killing occurs off-screen, the murders and especially the way they are committed are barbaric and deeply unpleasant. Nice bit of trivia for horror fanatics: "Darkroom" was produced by the Greek writer/director Niko Mastorakis; infamous for the insane and widely banned "Island of Death".

Produced by Nico Mastorakis, of Island of Death infamy, but directed by Terrence O'Hara, Darkroom is an obscure late-'80s horror that owes a debt to the Italian giallo genre in in its opening scenes, but which descends more and more into tired American slasher territory as the plot progresses.

The giallo elements are evident in the opening double murder, in which an unseen photographer, who has been spying on a married couple with his high-powered lens, dons yellow rain coat and rubber gloves before picking up a hatchet to kill his subjects. The maniac then sets his sights on the family of pretty teen Janet (Jill Pierce), who has gone to visit her folk at their remote farmhouse. One by one, the family members are picked off, leaving Janet and her mulleted boyfriend Steve (Jeff Arbaugh) to try and stay alive until help arrives.

With pedestrian direction, a weak script featuring dreadful dialogue and obvious red herrings, and most of the deaths occurring off-screen, Darkroom is, for the most part, predictable trash, O'Hara even seeing fit to throw in a gratuitous shower scene (for which I am grateful - it helped to alleviate the tedium). Admittedly, I was impressed by the number of family members who fall victim to the killer, and surprised by the film's flirtation with the taboo subject of incest (although, thinking about Mastorakis's debut movie, I shouldn't have been), but the majority of the film is so by-the-numbers that it all proves rather mundane.

4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for the creative opening credits, which were apparently the work of Mastorakis.

It would be much easier to watch this bird and cicada soundtrack movie if it weren't for all the bad actors talking during the whole thing. If this review makes no sense, watch and you'll understand.