Havana Darkness

When you start the film, the first 30 minutes play as basically a mystery/thriller that has some intrigue, although a bit cliche.

However, at about the 35 minute mark, it turns into a totally different movie! The best way I can explain what I mean is like this:

Imagine you were watching a movie that was like The Ninth Gate/ (or any mystery thriller that leans horror) ...and then out of no where, it turns into You're Next or SAW!!

Yes, I know...what a weird, jarring turn that would take right? Well that's this...it started off as what could be a decent thriller mystery...and out of no where, turns into your typical "man hunt" movie...which tells me the first 30 minutes were nothing more than the film trying to be smarter than it really is. It was trying to give depth to a run of the mill "run for your life, because..." movie.

I'll give it credit for TRYING to be more than a shallow man hunt film...that's about it.

Terribly written and so slow it actually made 2 people fall asleep. I get what they were going for but they really missed the mark. It was a pretty annoying movie. Well the concept is horrible, but whomever put this garbage together doesn't know how to make a movie. The writing sucks, the acting sucks, the directing sucks. Do you get the idea that this entire ting sucks? I wanted to dig my eyes out with a rusty fork.

Odd movie. Firstly I don't think they had permission to film in Cuba. All the external scenes are filmed from a distance and in very short segments, like they were hiding something from government officials. Kinda like that guy who made a feature film in Disney World surreptitiously.

That kind of makes a weird movie even weirder. So I agree with the other reviewer who gave this 5 stars. It starts out as a slow tension building thriller and then literally 40 minutes into it BANG!!!!! it's a different genre!

The dumbest part of this second half is that the group of "hunters" walk absurdly slow -- like slow motion slow -- so the three tourists can pretty much out run them.

Some of the bad reviews here are clearly from people who didn't watch the movie and just wanted to leave a bad review, because they make references to scenes that never happened!!!!

So is it good? Well it's good the way movies like this are good. Movies like Hostel and Turistas. If you like those you'll find something here to like.

This movie takes awhile to get going but it does set up an intresting premise. When the action towards the middle of the film gets going it decent. I love the fact the film was shot in Cuba the first English spoken horror movie to be shot there. We get to see locations not usually seen in movies, the actors aren't great. Carolina Ravassa puts in a good acting performance toward the end of the movie. The tie into hemmingway is dubious and ends up having a more simple plot despite the movie trying to over complicate its own plot. Its essence its a simple story added with alot of unnecessarys.

Upon learning of a mysterious unfinished manuscript from legendary novelist Ernest Hemingway, 3 friends decide to make a trip to Havana, Cuba. However, their investigations eventually lead them to a derelict building within the city, but their intuitive behaviour results in them being trapped in said derelict house where they become part of a deadly game which they have little chance of winning...

Considering the genre and the rather basic way the film plays out in the second half Havana Darkness has a very odd kind of pretentiousness about it which doesn't really sit well within the genre. More than half of the film is spent on one of the protagonists convincing the others of the sinister goings on at said derelict building and in trying to convince them that Ernest Hemingway was on to something with this house. Aside from the stupid idea that a group of protagonists would choose to venture inside a place with such a chequered history one also wonders why all of this filler was necessary to set the story up? I mean why not just have the group stumble across the house accidentally and decide to investigate - perhaps after hearing strange sounds or such like? Yes it still would have been flawed, but you still would have lost 45 minutes of filler and would have got to the meat of the film much quicker.

Ultimately when it does eventually get going it does become a cross between The Collector and Saw, but sadly the quality of this film is closer to the later Saw films more than anything else. The Collector had some problems, but it was intense and nail-bitingly tense (despite having a thin plot). The early Saw films benefitted from strong plots and imaginative traps making them the granddaddy of this kind of genre. By contrast, Havana Darkness shares none of these qualities; there is no tension - despite the killers having weapons they are totally inept and are the sort of people that would fail in their attempts to rob a 90 year old lady. The traps (all 2 of them I think) were not all that clever and the ending was also rather silly leaving the film open to a sequel.

Havana Darkness has no tension, no intensity, no suspense and a weird kind of pretentiousness in the first half that feels completely unconnected to the second half of the picture. If you want to see this sort of thing done right then watch The Collector/The Collection or any of the Saw films (heck only some of the very late Saw films give Havana Darkness a run for its money in terms of crappiness).