Film Review: DARKROOM (2013)

The road to recovery has never been as menacing as it is for Michelle (Kaylee DeFer) in the film Darkroom (2013).  Michelle has just gotten a new job recommended by her counselor after having been in rehab recovering from a past trauma.  Upon taking the new job she soon discovers that she’s the prisoner of three psychotic siblings who will teach her how to repent for her past sins even if it kills her. 

Michelle is forced to undergo intense questioning and torturing before she realizes she is but one of many other women who are also subjected to the siblings’ idea of religious purging and she must find a way to escape before she becomes their next victim.

Written by Britt Napier the film is designed as a lower budget version of Saw (2004) mixed with a little bit of The People Under the Stairs (1991) but is neither as graphic or horrifying or fun and entertaining as those two films (respectfully).  What the film does have going for it is Elisabeth Rohm who plays one of the siblings.  It’s refreshing to see her in a villainous role as I’m so used to seeing her in the hero and good-girl and she does her character well.

The film tries hard to make a point of having the Michelle character overcome her own person and internal demons by externalizing them by trying to save herself and a friend from the torture but it comes at the costs of logic as there is no real logic to some of the character’s motivations as audiences will perceive them as idiotic.  DeFer is a very capable actress who gives Michelle enough of an edge to allow you to oversee the film’s shortcomings.

Film Review: LAKE PLACID: THE FINAL CHAPTER (2012)

Actress Yancy Butler returns to battle giant man-eating crocodiles in Lake Placid: The Final Chapter (2012).  Having survived the ordeal of her previous encounter at the infamous lake, Reba (Butler) is now settled with Sheriff Giove (Elisabeth Rohm) with the protection of her town by barricading the growing population of crocodiles from the rest of the world with an electric fence.  Reba would rather just kill them all but it seems that they are now an endangered species and protected from being hunted.  This does not stop big game hunter Jim Bickerman (Robert England) or his group of men who plan to break into the barricaded area in order to steal the valuable eggs of the crocodiles.  When Bickerman’s men accidentally leave the gate to the quarantined area open an school bus of lost and unsuspecting teenagers find their way to the beach where they are the meal of the day for a swarm of crocodiles starving for food. 

It’s great to see Butler back as Reba as she has grown into the roll with her no nonsense attitude towards her job of both protecting the endangered crocodiles and wanting to kill them all.  She has a lot of fun in the roll and every time she’s on the screen she cracks and sizzles.  Rohm is the more subdued of the two and isn’t given as much room to have any fun but she does play the typical mother whose daughter is one of the bus load of teenagers trapped behind enemy lines.  It is England who truly outshines them all as Bickerman a relative of Betty White’s Delores Bickerman from the original 1999 film (so a nice nod there).  He is given free rein to have as much fun as he can in a film that saddled with mediocre CGI crocodile VFX.

The film is written by David Reed (who also wrote Part 3) and directed by Don Michael Paul.  This is a film that knows it’s the fourth film in an ever going franchise of diminishing results (and for those of you counting there is a Lake Placid Vs. Anaconda film on the horizon for this year).  This is not meant to be a good film but I give it points for bringing in some impressive stars and letting them have fun with the mediocre material because if they’re having fun we’re all having fun (and if you make it into a drinking game it’s even more fun).