Left in Darkness

I thought this movie would be a lot better especially since a lot of the other Stephen J. Cannell straight to DVD movies i've seen were pretty good.Ones like It lives,the garden and room 6 were enjoyable but left in darkness was a good script and good idea but it reminded me more of an all ages movie that you would see on TV.The score was more like a Disney movie and the acting was OK but not great.It was just not scary.I can't believe Steve and the director actually thought it was scary when they said it was in the making of or behind the scenes extra feature.The character of Donovan was the worst written because when he died he was an 8 year old boy,so why was he 20 something all of a sudden when Celia died.I didn't realize you aged after you died.I assumed you stayed the same age.Also why was he her guardian angel while she was alive,and then a demon or devil when she dies.That whole part was stupid and made no sense.It would have made more sense if she met Donovan again as an 8 year old boy the way he appeared to her in a cemetery.But aging him and making him evil is just very inconsistent.And as if a little girl is going to fly through the air after nearly being hit by a car.The monsters looked more like something from a sci-fi or fantasy movie not a horror.It was very predictable and not well executed.I have seen movies with way lower budgets that are actually scary and seemed believable.This one was more of a disappointment.

I really liked this movie, although I initially didn't expect it to be much good. Overall it was a really nice afterlife flick.

If you're a Christian you might be disappointed, because how you led your life obviously doesn't matter all too much in this version of the "purgatory". Also, "hell" doesn't try to tempt you into going there, being shown blatantly for what it is. That left aside the film actually manages to provide some likable characters. The acting isn't the best of the best, but I've seen much much ... much worse. There is much talk in this film and close to no gore. Still it manages to not get boring. I found the plot easy to follow and the rules of the afterlife simple to understand. There aren't too many rules anyway, if you turn your brains on it comes down to two or three, although they get reiterated from time to time.

If you've got a movie night coming up with some friends that don't like gore but still want to have something that would count as a horror movie, this one isn't a bad choice at all.

I caught this on cable the other night, and to be honest I wasn't expecting much. You don't expect much from Zone Horror, not after a while - there are an awful lot of Z-grade turkeys on that channel, but occasionally they do come up with a gem, almost in spite of themselves. This film isn't quite a lost diamond, but it's not at all bad.

If nothing else, the writer and director have a bit of imagination. The plot goes like this: Celia goes to a party, messes about with a ouija board, then gets raped and murdered. Most films would take a drearily predictable tack at this point - Celia has to ensure that her killer is brought to justice, yadda yadda. You can see half a dozen movies with that plot on any given evening, if you really want to.

But this film takes another tack. Celia finds herself in something like Purgatory, a dangerous place inhabited by creatures who will eat your soul, given half a chance. By working through the ghosts of her past, and working with her 'imaginary' friend from childhood, she has to try to escape and get to, presumably, Heaven.

The bad news is that the budget was obviously about seven dollars. Purgatory is represented by something that looks very like suburbia, and there is at least one scene too many set in the front of a car. Parts of the plot are slightly repetitive, too, and the dialogue isn't particularly memorable.

But - and it's a very big but - everyone involved obviously cared about this movie. The acting is more than competent, especially from David Anders as the morally ambiguous childhood friend, who is a rarity in this type of horror film - a really interesting character. The movie whooshes along at a good clip, the plot actually makes some sense, and I found myself genuinely caring about Celia's plight, which was totally unexpected.

The most surprising thing, for me, was the the director of this movie also did a couple of truly horrible films that I saw recently, It Waits and Sasquatch Mountain. This movie is, thank God, in a different class to those cheese-fests. Hopefully this means that Steven Monroe is getting the hang of this directing business, and we can expect more like this in the future.

I was drawn to this film by it's interesting premise. Of course, as a straight to video film I wasn't really expecting much even though I hoped for the best. The film sat somewhere in the middle for me. It was enjoyable and somewhat interesting, but I couldn't help but feel it had much more potential than it displayed. Perhaps on a higher budget with a better script, we could have seen something really special. When the movie was over, I shrugged... I wasn't overly satisfied, yet not disappointed. But as far as straight to video films go, this one is definitely in the upper class.

And what was up with Monica Keena's lips?

Celia (Monica Keena of "Freddy vs. Jason") has always felt lots of guilt over the fact that her mother died giving birth to her. Now, as a young adult, she's mourning the recent death of her grandfather Joe (the legendary Tim Thomerson of the "Trancers" series), who raised her after her worthless father took a powder. She celebrates her 21st birthday by going to a wild frat party where she has the worst, and final, night of her life: she is drugged, raped, and dies of an overdose.

Now stuck in some kind of netherworld, she has to navigate her surroundings, not sure if she should follow the advice of her guardian angel Donovan (David Anders of 'Alias'), who saved her life as a child. While she tries to figure out how to get to Heaven, she must avoid beings known as "soul eaters".

This well-intentioned but resolutely average horror movie does subvert conventions in some ways (it's not really about righting wrongs committed in real life). But it spends too much time laying on the exposition and the ground rules (which is basically Donovans' job). Occasionally, there are some interesting visuals, and director Steven R. Monroe ("It Waits", "I Spit on Your Grave" 1 and 2, "The Exorcism of Molly Hartley") gives it a reasonable amount of atmosphere and pace. It gets most of its mileage from the sincere lead performance by Keena, and from the participation of ever-reliable Thomerson. Anders is fairly amusing in his role; Jessica Stroup ("The Hills Have Eyes II"), Chris Engen ('The Young and the Restless'), and Travis Van Winkle ("Friday the 13th" '09) co-star. Former "Bad Seed" Patty McCormack has a cameo as Celias' grandmother. And that's co-producer Stephen J. Cannells' daughter Chelsea as Tawnia.

Overall, this viewer would have to say that while he has seen worse than this, he's also seen better.

Five out of 10.