Darkest Hour (with Darkworld) - Reviewed by Derek M. Koch
Reviewed By: Derek M. Koch
Directed by: Dan Zachary (Darkest Hour) / David Palmieri (Darkworld)
Released: Maverick Entertainment Group
One-half out of 5 Skulls
I’ve had a mild and passing interest in those “Murder Mystery” games as the idea of an interactive story appeals to me. I’ve never actually participated in one of these “Murder Mystery” events, but if I found one that was based around the theme of a slasher flick, I would have signed up for one a long time ago!Darkest Hour opens in the small town of North Bend, Washington, where a killer called the North Bend Reaper has chased yet another female victim through her house and trapping her in her closet, ala Halloween. The killer wears a skull-face mask, wears a long black cape and wields a scythe, which he uses to break through the closet doors to kill his current victim.
This all happens at the start of the movie; the bulk of the story takes place several years later when, during a memorial service for the victims of the North Bend Reaper, a local acting group organizes a weekend event in which participants can take part in a murder mystery slasher party at the local summer camp.
Because the North Bend Reaper was never found, it becomes fairly obvious what’s about to happen.
The idea of a slasher-flick-themed event like this is definitely intriguing, but that’s really about as engaging as this movie gets. Most of the performances are flat, which makes the over-the-top performances from actors like Benjamin Gutknecht (who plays Dreighton, the face-painted host of the slasher-weekend) glaringly stand out.
The killer is bland. And the kills are worse. We see more blood in the simulated death scenes that are part of the game than in the actual kills.
What could have been an interesting movie just fell apart more and more as the running time went by. The characters aren’t really likable enough for us to care about who gets killed, and the mystery is never given enough of a spotlight for us really start trying to figure out who the killer is. Director and co-writer Dan Zachary attemped to give us a slasher with shades of April Fool’s Day, Friday the 13th and Scream, but his Darkest Hour is just a bust on nearly every level.
Included with this DVD is the bonus feature Darkworld, another Maverick Entertainment Release that has absolutely no connection to Darkest Hour other than the word Dark being used in one way or another in its title.
Darkworld tells the story of Fallon (stiffly played by Gina Valona), a young woman who is killed in a home burglary gone wrong, but then somehow finds herself in the service of a demon when Fallon’s father sells her out instead of paying some sort of debt to a bookie with a rather odd bit of facial hair. For a few years, she serves her demon master (named Mr. Sixx and played by Steve Jones Watson) faithfully with no memory of who she was before, but when she’s assigned to collect the soul of her (still living) little sister, she suddenly remembers who she was and turns on Mr. Sixx to keep her sister safe.
There is a lack of subtlety in both Darkest Hour and Darkworld. We’re not given a chance to settle into a story; instead we’re hit over the head with the filmmakers’ attempts at plot and characterization. In Darkworld, the only real actor bringing anything more than an ability to memorize lines to the table is Jeff Swarthout as Malachai, who becomes a sort of protector of Fallon and her sister.
Neither of these movies really offer much more than time filler. Darkest Hour at least had the beginning of an interesting premise, but just watching the first few minutes into Darkworld is enough to let us know why this movie was packaged as a “special feature” rather than being granted its own individual release.
NOT RECOMMENDED