Dark Heritage

Independent film maker David McCormick was at his best when he ably directed his no-name cast and managed his motley crew to produce a film that keeps you wondering throughout the entire flick. Some might view the actors as stiff and slow, but this is the real secret of Dark Heritage; that is, a cast of characters who know next to nothing about acting are used by McCormick in ways that will make the hair on the back of your neck stand straight up. Shot on location in Louisiana, this film takes advantage of the swamps, plantations, and antebellum homes. In fact it's in one antebellum home that the bloodiest scenes of the movie take place. The director's camera techniques in the horrific dream sequence are done to make the viewer squirm in his seat. The sound track is moving and is timed to move the viewer along to discover the secrets of a mysterious family of man-eating creatures. And perhaps an even more important note than the music is the way the recording of the sound and sound effects throughout the entire movie enhanced and, in some cases, even made up for the few shortcomings of the actors. McCormick took some unknowns and created a thriller that incorporates the best of detective "who dunnits" with the probing ferocity of heroic journalists. Combined with blood and guts, drama and intensity, and sheer terror, this is a "must see" film on a Friday night with a group of your best buds (and maybe some 12 ounce ones too).

A group of campers is slaughtered whilst camping in a wooded area.Press reporter Clint Harrison decides to try to find out exactly what happened to those campers who died.He enlists two other men for help and goes to the woods where they reach an abandoned creepy looking mansion.Clint's team begins to die killed by some sort of bizarre creatures.What's going on in this derelict mansion?"Dark Heritage" by independent film-maker David McCormick is a watchable albeit quite slow-moving horror film inspired by short story written by H.P Lovecraft titled "Lurking Fear".The acting is amateurish and the dialogue is often terrible,but the monsters look creepy and the story is cool.6 Lovecrafts out of 10.

The girls might be prettier if you're their accompanist or a $#!+-faced onlooker. What I'm sayin' is that it'll take special circumstances for a non-whince reaction to this effort. The delivery of many lines appears to be distractingly unnatural for some actors. Lighting seems to be a problem, too, although failing eyesight may have accounted for my frequent squinting. And if you view this film, be open-minded enough to accept elements that no zoo or circus would reject: They are the above and below-ground creatures who feasted on dozens of campers near an empty Louisiana mansion. That's the discovery of a trio who is dispatched from their printed media to investigate the deaths. Then, two of THEM disappear, and the survivor is part of another threesome who take up the hunt. Eureka! I just realized what one of those aforementioned "special circumstances" would be - unconsciousness.

Let's get the bad out of the way: This is a regional horror film, with non-actors and no budget. However, what surprised me about this film was that it actually managed to generate some sort of atmosphere, and even more surprising is that I didn't fall asleep.

A journalist with bad hair gets sent to research a story with a guy about as wooden as the back yard of B&Q. There's a house in Louisiana where there's a doings a transpirin' and it's up to the journalist and his two buddies to find out what's going' down. His buddies disappear, so the journalist does what people never do in horror films: he actually runs away! That was refreshing for starters.

Although he does go back with two other guys. Despite the legion of handicaps this film has, it still manages to keep going at a good pace, and by the time the creatures appear I was forgiving the film for it's faults. Don't go in expecting a classic, or even a normal film, and you should have a good time.

I watched this because it was supposedly adapted from Lovecraft's Lurking Fear, and indeed it is.

The main house in it, I thought to myself, resembled the house Fletch inherited in Fletch Lives (1989). In fact, it is!: the Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation, Geismer, Louisiana, USA. I think it's unlikely they were both shooting there the same year. Dark Heritage seems like it could be several years older than its copyright date.

A reporter is sent to do a story on some campers that have been killed (we only see that two are attacked, but evidently more were). The newspaper's owner has the manager offer the reporter to stay in a nearby house about which he is also curious. The manager thinks it's a really bad idea, but the reporter agrees and has two other guys willing to join him.

Something happens during the night, and the two other guys are killed; the reporter flees. No evidence is found afterward, but a videotape they'd made shows up in the reporter's car mysteriously. He researches the house and the area in a library, where he meets two parapsychologists who are also interested in the house.

The new team of three goes back, and they discover strange holes in the ground around the house...

I don't think there will be any big surprises for anyone who has read Lovecraft's story, or the two other movie adaptations of it (Lurking Fear, and Bleeders AKA Hemoglobin). However, it is a good amateur effort.