Wednesday, March 15, 2006

The Dark Hours – 2005

     Once again, I have no idea how I came to put this movie in my queue. I’m glad I did,  however, as it was an interesting watch. Sort of a Donnie Darko meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (but without the cannibalism). A murdering psycho stalks his psychologist. But there’s a lot more here than meets the eye, initially. And then the mind games start.

The director appears to be the King of the shorts, as this is his first full-length feature. He says in the commentary that the movie took 18 days to shoot, and that makes this a well shot film. Especially for a first effort. And the script is good. Too bad the acting isn’t up to the same high standard. The heroine is terrible, with all the pathos of a damp dish rag.

There’s an alternate ending that doesn’t have the punch of the one used, but might be a touch more original. There are no subtitles, but there is the aforementioned commentary. Unfortunately, the director is pretty much a bore, and so’s the commentary. Not much of a sense of humor, has our Paul Fox.

Also, there’s an hour long behind the scenes that will drive you absolutely mad. How about 25 minutes of doing the same scene over and over again. If they took this long to shoot this one scene, I don’t see how they could possibly have done the rest of the movie in 18 days.

Three beers out of five (and still no nudity. Damn, what a draught!)