Dark Angel: The Ascent (1994)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

This film essentially begins with a young female demon named "Veronica" (Angela Featherstone) who lives underground in Hell but has visions of life on the surface. When her father hears of this he becomes quite furious and almost kills her. Fortunately for her, she manages to escape and with her faithful dog "Hellraiser" finds her way up to the surface. Unfortunately, upon venturing into a nearby city she happens to get struck by a car and is subsequently taken to a hospital. While there she meets a physician by the name of "Dr. Max Barris" (Daniel Markel) who takes pity on her and agrees to take her to his home upon her release the next morning. Veronica, however, has been conditioned since inception to punish those who do evil and upon venturing outside of his apartment she proceeds to do just that. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that this was an interesting movie which apparently tried to mix in some dark comedy with some of the horror aspects but didn't succeed all that well. It also suffered from a low-budget which was particularly obvious with some of the computer graphics. In short, this wasn't necessarily a bad movie by any means but it had its faults and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

Dark Angel: The Ascent starts in hell where a young Angel named Veronica (Angela Featherstone) has arguments with her brutal father Hellikin (Nicholas Worth) who works in hell as a torturer, Veronica wants to leave hell &after a big argument with her father she does. A portal from hell leads Veronica out of a sewer & into a small town in America, there veronica his hit by a car & is taken to the nearby All Saint's hospital where kind doctor Max Barris (Daniel Markel) falls for her innocent child like ways & offers her a place to stay. Veronica is intrigued by her new surroundings but it's not long before the Angel in her comes out after she realises how much evil there is on Earth, as a punisher of evil back in the pits of hell Veronica reverts to type & brutally kills anyone she thinks is a sinner as both she & Max begin to fall in love but can a human man & a dark Angel from hell ever be happy together?This Romanian American co-production from Charles Band & his Full Moon Entertainment production company when he actually still bothered making decent horror & sci-fi films was directed by Linda Hassani & is an oddball sort of fantasy horror romance that isn't exactly brilliant but a lot more interesting than a lot of Band's later output. Dark Angel: The Ascent is an odd mix of religious ideas, romance, comedy & horror with a little vigilantism thrown in there too that is memorable if nothing else although by the end of the film it felt like a collection of moments rather than a coherent film. Scenes are set in hell, on Earth & Veronica is this dark Angel who falls in love with a mortal man while dishing out some brutal justice to sinners she meets. The main theme of the film is all about being as good a human being as you can otherwise the wraith of God will punish you in one way or the other, it's a rather heavy handed message & I doubt anyone watching Dark Angel: The Ascent will take any notice anyway but the makers tried I suppose. The romantic side of things are very straight forward, man meets girl & they fall for each other but in typical fantasy style the girl happens to have descended from hell. The horror angle is alright too with scenes set in a fiery burning hell where tongues are cut off & people are tortured for infinity & there are a few decent kills back on Earth as well. While a mixed bag of a film at only 80 odd minutes it moves along at a decent pace, the story maintains interest throughout & the mixing of ideas & genres works quite well although it does get a little fractured towards the end with seemingly random events happening. Of course it's not perfect, the dialogue is very forced & sounds weird, the subplot about the Mayor disappoints & while Veronica is stabbed at one point with no apparent consequences when she gets shot at the end she almost dies so there's not much consistently & most damming of all I just didn't have much fun watching it as it's all a bit matter of fact & preachy.The film looks alright but it's painfully obvious that this was shot in Romania & not in the US where it's supposedly set, the makers probably used local actors & crew & maybe that's why the dialogue sounds so strange & forced like everyone is speaking in broken English. The film has a dark cold look to it, it's quite stylish without ever being visually amazing. The scenes set in hell are quite good too with a red fiery depiction of hell & the idea that Demons have families & daughters & go home after a hard days torturing sinners to eat their dinner that their wife has cooked them is quite amusing, the whole idea that they have family problems & arguments & rebellious children is also neat but does feel a little out of place & a little bit like a comedy sketch. While in hell Veronica has a pair of bad plastic wings & two horns which magically disappear when she arrives on Earth. There's a bit of gore here, there's a severed hand, a cut off tongue, a ripped out spine, a mutilated body, someone has a large pole pushed through them, throats are slashed & a people are stabbed. There's also a bit of nudity & sex as well.With a supposed budget of about $350,000 this looks like it had more spent on it actually as it has decent special effects & production values but I suppose Romanian labour is cheap. The acting isn't great, again maybe the Romanian cast being asked to act as Americans & speak in English has something to do with that. Angela Featherstone as veronica is quite good although not brilliant & she looks alright I suppose.Dark Angel: The Ascent is a film with some good ideas that never really come to fruition, the makers never really develop them so they have proper meaning & while it's different I didn't actually enjoy watching it that much. An oddball horror romantic fantasy with religious overtones that is good but not great.

No idea what the previous reviewer was watching but the film looked great with impressive lighting, locations and camera-work, unprecedented for a film of this budget, texture wtf? lol The acting was oddly mixed sometimes very good and you wouldn't even notice you were watching a B movie, other times terrible and definite shades of porno, but an impressive attempt and a surprisingly interesting plot which blurs the moral lines between good and evil. The effects were not over used and were fine for the purpose and not particularly cheesy, and the movie made me laugh in quite a few places which is always good, either intentionally or not. I cant really criticize anything other than maybe the ending maybe felt like the whole thing had run out of steam a little, but this could have been much worse.

Here's a concept for you, Hell is run by God. In this movie Hell is a place where sinners are punished by "demons" who worship, and work for, God. Our heroine, Veronica, is a demon born in Hell and raised by God fearing parents to punish sinners until they repent. As she comes of age she wonders why people are only punished after they die, she wants to know why the wicked are not punished before they can do more evil, thus lessening the sins upon their souls and reducing the pain and suffering of others. Veronica slips out of Hell and ascends to the mortal realm only to find it is literally brimming with sinners of the worst kind. Upon learning that sins are not only ignored but often encouraged in the mortal realm she sets out to set people back on the straight and narrow, with appropriately gory results.