Darker Than Night (2014)

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Take a bunch of boring, spoiled, know-nothing young women, give them an inheritance, place them inside a fake-looking studio "house" where nothing happens for nearly 2 hours, and what do you get? Well, this film, which is tedious.The attempted use of the "cat, dead aunt and the housekeeper" to scare the audience goes on forever. The lighting of the film ruins the atmosphere, so does the fake CGI exterior of the house. The acting is below-standard and dull.The lighting of the film ruins the atmosphere in the end, so does the fake CGI aunt in the house.The film is tedious, again.It is a remake of "Más negro que la noche" (1975) which was average, but is included on a TV set a girl is watching in this Director Henry Bedwell version. The 1975 film is directed by Carlos Enrique Taboada, who did "Even the Wind Is Afraid" (1968) and "The Book of Stone" (1969) in his trilogy of horror, all equally average and dull.

I didn't had huge expectations for this movie, because Mexican horror films usually suck. Being a Mexican, I hate Mexican horror/suspense films, because one thing they don't have is horror. And with "Más Negro Que la Noche", a remake from an old Mexican classic, I prove my point again. I missed it when it was on theaters, and it seemed really good, but I'm thankful I didn't paid more than 30 pesos to rent it. This movie is full of horror clichés, but the movie takes these clichés to another level: A haunted house that looks like something horrible happened there, four unlikeable lead characters that are molded with the typical personalities; the actresses acted like it was a theater play instead of a horror movie, they overreact too much, and the scared faces or screaming were too fake, seems like they didn't even tried. 90 of the 100 minutes of the movie are so boring. Nothing happens during the whole movie, the script is so messy and forced, you wait for at least one character to die but nothing happens. All the "horror" you get is noises, random stuff moving, and a very annoying score that was all over the top, and it attempts to scare you but fails miserably. If you know the Mexican horror movie formula, you'll predict that this movie includes ghosts, a black cat, and an old lady that acts as poorly as the young cast. I recommend you to avoid this one! You'll lose 100 minutes of your time.

I am hoping IMDb incorporates negative numbers for ratings because we had our share of really terrible films this year: "Bad Neighbors" and "This is Where I Leave" jump to the front of the list, but this film along with "The Wolf of Wall Street", "American Hustle", and "The Hurt Locker" deserve their own special section, and a rating of one is just much more than they should get.Where do we begin with this cinematic disaster? For starters, a big budget doesn't guarantee quality or talent. Ed Wood did wonders with nothing. At least he had imagination, and there have been a series of films throughout the last thirty years that have taken hand held cameras and used the talents of their writers and actors to give us some worthy entertainment. What is so sad is to see the waste of resources in films like these. Because that's the obvious part here: There was money to burn, and if anyone got burned it was us because we were led to think there was something worth watching somewhere inside this mess.First, we have a bunch of utterly talentless people "acting" in front of the camera. There is no way anyone in the audience can believe these people are even playing stupid. They look as lost as the audience because we can't figure out what is going on. If lots of special effects, mostly relegated to flashes of light, and plenty of creaking noises and crashing furniture is supposed to create an atmosphere of doom and darkness, we get hints of it, but after a while it is completely neutered by the abysmal performance and direction. Once in a while we see this furry thing from hell (and we're there, not the characters) jump around, supposedly to frighten us because it is not a regular cat, and he's coming back get them (not soon enough, mind you).Second, there are some gorgeous sets in here, and I wonder how many of them truly are sets, or it might have been some old, run down mansion that they just decided to use for sets or background. It does look spooky, and sadly, it only makes everything else about the terrible film, sub-zero performances, and missing script look even worse than they are, and they're terrible.Third, there is nothing wrong with dropping a few curses around, but when every sentence has one, I begin to wonder if the "writers" are even capable of thinking beyond concepts or simple monosyllables. As far as I understood, these people belong to the upper crust of society, and they're so foul mouthed, I was wondering exactly what they're supposed to represent. This is one of the worst problems in the film. No one is worth saving. I was hoping the maid would slash their throats in the first five minutes because if there was any filth here is all of the rich kids who stupidly do everything they can to become targets of "BECKET"!!! All we are given are drug addicts, spoiled brats, foul mouthed sluts, drunks, mentally impaired friends, and who knows what else they were trying to portray. This is a problem since there is no villain we can make any sense of, and there is no one who earns a bit of our support. The first thing they do is mistreat the lawyer and the maid.In addition to the lack of any talent, comparisons arise from the start. "The Orphanage" pops into mind immediately, and such amazing film becomes even better because the themes of family, destruction, and angry spirits are supposed to be buried somewhere in this horrible collection of wasted resources. Then we have "The Others" and their wonderful portrayal of lost souls, and we can continue with the list of predecessors such "The Legend of Hell House", "The Haunting", and even mini seconds of "The Exorcist", "Alien", and other films that honor the genre.Unfortunately, this is not the case here, just a frivolous attempt from a group of "performers, film makers, and producers" who found a way to finance a free vacation to some exotic location and left us, feeling cheated, angry, and in worse shape than BECKET!!! Remember, Becket came back and won the battle... just remember. We will up that one and just walk away and leave stranded next time you try to pull another one of these sad projects.

Wow... Where to start from... Actors seem to have a background in theater. Their performances are rather exaggerated and fake (but not fake enough for me to think "oh, that's the style of the film").Logic was a minor element of the film (meaning, it was very ever there). It was ridiculous. Examples: - A man makes a scene because he decides that after one week his girlfriend has changed. As part of his argument, he says that she's not been out lately (really? she moves home and decides not to go out the week of the move; how is that unusual in any way?). - The girls move into the house, which one of them owns. They seem to find it normal that the housekeeper assigns them their rooms, even if they don't like her choices. - The girls organize a party, leave a huge mess, that is magically cleaned in a couple of hours. - And so many other little things that were simply wrong!Finally, I found the main character's hair style very, very annoying. Yeah, I know. Out of all the things I could complain about. Why this? Well, her curls were beauty parlor curls... The type that require your hair to be straightened first and then curled up. She would wake up, and her hair would be ready. Really? Yeah, no.