Dark Ride (2006)

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

I have just Re-Watched this, I have only seen it once before, about 11 years ago, when it first came out.I could not remember much, so I gave it another go. I really liked the opening scene, thought it was very good, had the 80s vibe to it.Sadly that was the only decent part of it, as the rest of it was Very hard to watch The acting in this, was some of the worst I ever seen.It made it harder to care about anyone, I thought some parts of the movie dragged.I thought the kills were disappointing and the twist at end was so predicable.

Looked promising and reminded me someway to Tobe Hooper's The Funhouse (1981)Dark Ride could have been so good sadly it was a pure waist of time.There's in fact nothing going on throughout the most part of this so-called horror. In the beginning when the two girls are talking about their weekend out and are having wild ideas of that particular weekend one of them shows...her bra. That done I knew that this was going to be pure trash. And it is, but in the wrong way.Some trashy flicks do offer things but the only thing that's worth seeing is the slut showing her juggs and going for giving head, in both ways. But the production doesn't do a thing with that part, giving head and being decapitated...common. The second thing only worth watching is the head being slashed in two. But overall, its' a lot of blah blah and no scary moments at all.Gore 0,5/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 2/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

The plot = A group of college students plans a weekend getaway in a van to New Orleans, we get Cathy (Jamie Lynn DiScala) the female lead and obvious heroine, Liz (Jennifer Tisdale) the sexy best friend, Steve (David Clayton Rogers) Cathy's ex-boyfriend, Jim (Alex Solowitz) the wacky one with an eye for the ladies and Bill (Patrick Renna) the film geek. Along the way they stop at a gas station one the group comes across a flyer for the Dark Ride amusement where several years ago 2 teenage girls got butchered and the killer got locked up in a mental hospital. So the group decides to check it out and on they're way they pick up a hitchhiker a ditsy blonde Jen (Andrea Bogat) and takes her along for the ride. But unknown to them the killer has already escaped from the mental hospital and is at the Dark Ride waiting for them.Dark Ride is a fun throwback to the 1980's slasher movies, and this one is more in vein with Funhouse, but this one's much better it also captures the essence of many of that time's best. To my mind, the most enjoyable slashers were those that managed to have relatively likable characters in peril without being overly mean-spirited, all the cast played they're parts well in my opinion Jamie Lynn made a very likable heroine and not your typical virgin character either, and Alex Solowitz who plays the film geek also gives a standout performance although he does disappear for a big chunk of the movie.Plus we get the usual Drug taking, t&a, a masked killer, ultra-gory kills and teens running around in the dark screaming. But they are a few flaws like the pacing is off at times and we don't get much character development like some of them could have been explained a little bit more, like Jen The Hitchhiker, we don't get any background on her at all, all we know is that she's a ditsy blonde who loves taking drugs and screwing around and she's also a little nuts, potential murder victim (I'd say), and the twist at the end I saw coming a mile off, but other than that this movie is fun and the gore level is great we get disembowelment's, heads chopped, heads split in half the works. And we also get a creepy killer called Jonah seems to have as much fun trying to be part of the ride as he does finding ways to creatively off his victims.All in all Dark Ride is a definite fun ride and shows what Funhouse could have been.

I agree with the majority of voters that the movie "Dark Ride" is not exactly a masterpiece. Nevertheless, I think, director Craig Singer has to be thanked for having made the first movie of what is called either "dark ride" or "ghost train" in British English.In this Movie Database, there is a very concise definition of what we are speaking here: " 'Dark ride' is an old term used in the carnival business to describe rides that involve getting in a cart or buggy and traversing a dark, enclosed building designed to have characters or props appear at intervals, designed to surprise or entertain". However, the most important part of a dark ride, besides the maze-like horror cabinet, is forgotten here: the combination of rails and wheel. There are indeed "ghost houses" or "haunted houses" in the form of "walk-throughs", i.e. without carts or buggies driving through. Not only is it amazing that it took decades until the first movie was made about dark rides – a topic that is more than predestined to deliver the background for or like here the center of almost any thinkable form of horror. It is also amazing that the British term "dark ride" is almost unknown in the US – although there are dark rides even in small theme parks (stationary) or on fairgrounds (itinerant). The other British term, "ghost train", is ambiguous: On the one side, it is used for a real train driven or populated by ghosts (like in many movies under this title), or it is used for dark ride, being a literal translation of German "Geisterbahn".Ghost trains or dark rides or haunted houses appear first on German and Dutch fairgrounds in the early 1930ies. Their ancestors were "hollow trains", "scene railways" and generally horror cabinets, which came up in the late 19th century. When fairground business started to decline between the two World Wars, many of the famous German dark rides which were built by the legendary showman Hugo Haase, were sold to America. The best two-floor dark rides or ghost trains came for example to Coney Island where they have been gigantic attractions. However, the fate of these theme-rides has never been written. Why they did not even inspire a movie until 2006, when Singer's "Dark Ride" was released, stays a mystery. Moreover, dark rides hardly ever appear in American standard works about fairground art, although Geoff Warden and Richard Ward displayed in their art history reference work hundreds of pictures of both Europe-imported and US-built dark rides and similar theme-rides. Nowadays, it seems that the once fascinating rides through dark rides have been followed by horror movies under use of extensive special effects. However, watching a movie can never substitute a ride through a horror cabinet. Therefore, dark rides could perhaps be revitalized through using newer forms of horror provided by movies.