News tips and press releases may be sent
to editor at hollywoodinvestigator.com.
All submissions become property of the Hollywood Investigator and
deemed for publication without compensation unless otherwise
requested. Name and contact information only withheld upon request.
Prospective reporters should research our
Bookstore.
by Thomas M. Sipos,
managing editor [November 2, 2021]
[HollywoodInvestigator.com]The IMDB says that
Dark Chronicles (2019) was
originally a "TV Mini-Series" comprising four episodes. Those episodes
have been combined into a horror anthology film, with the addition of
a horror host for a wraparound plus inserts between each tale.
Dark Chronicles runs a bit over 84
minutes, including the wraparound, so the episodes aren't very long.
And judging by its low-budget production values, this looks like a web
series rather than anything made for TV.
"Possession" (12 minutes)
is a standard demonic possession story. It only has a cast of two. A
man tries to exorcise a woman. Nothing new here, apart from a
"surprise twist" ending that didn't surprise me, and wasn't very
interesting.
"Relic" (20 minutes) was the only tale I kinda liked. Three
young people visit an antique store reputed to sell weird items.
The store looks like
every antique store, curio shop, occult bookstore, and fortune
teller's den in every horror film ever made. It's located in a seedy
part of town. Shabby on the outside. Quiet, dimly lit, and cluttered
with oddities on the inside. Pagan masks, burning candles, a devil's
mirror, skeleton figurines, and an ancient, handwritten occult book
are among the store's inventory.
The store owner is a pretty young woman who tries to look creepy by
wearing a veil. She also talks in the stiff, formal fashion of people
knowledgeable about the occult. She tricks the young visitors into
summoning a dead spirit, who follows them home and butchers them in
the style of Michael Myers. Hey, he might be a spirit, but he still
enjoys his splatter and gore.
Nothing terribly original about "Relic," but I liked the store's
spooky atmosphere, and the film was well paced.
"What Hides Within" (13 minutes) is the usual zombie apocalypse. Four
people barricaded in a house. Inside, the walls are covered with
plastic sheets. (Why? Because it looks cool?) One man becomes a zombie
and kills two others, eating their flesh. The final survivor escapes,
but meets an unexpected fate in a surprise twist ending. This time, I
was surprised. But the ending was nihilistic and unpleasant.
Actually, I'm not sure if the flesh eaters are zombies. Zombies are
dead, but these flesh eaters might be alive yet driven insane by a
virus. They run rather than shamble, they're feral, they eat flesh,
and they can be killed. Zombies? Whatever. They are what they are.
"The Conductor" (29 minutes) is the longest and dullest tale.
Christopher M. Carter's script is heavily padded. His characters keep
repeating their points. The dialog could have been cut in half without
losing anything. Carter's direction is also poor. His actors speak too
slowly, savoring their (repetitive) evil lines. Stanley Kubrick and
David Lynch also linger on moments,
but Carter lingers on nothing very interesting.
Carter's story has many twists, but no original elements. Three people
in a bar on a rainy night. They have secrets. Past crimes. There's
sadistic violence and the supernatural.
Jessica Morgan has a thing for broken bones sticking out of arms. She
did the make-up effects for "The Conductor" and "Possession," and both
films have people who break their arms so the bone sticks out. (Dustin
Rieffer wrote and directed "Possession," so Morgan is the common
element on both films.) She also directed and co-wrote "What Hides
Within," in which a woman's arm is sawed off. A Jill of all trades,
Morgan also stars in "The Conductor," but she's better at breaking and
sawing off arms than at acting.
Dark Chronicles's technical
aspects are decent enough. The acting and writing ranges from
acceptable to bad. "Relic" (also written and directed by Carter) is
its only entertaining tale. The wraparound (a simple host who
introduce the stories) is also well done.
Even hardcore horror fans might want to ignore
Dark Chronicles. For horror
anthology completists only.
"Hollywood Investigator" and
"HollywoodInvestigator.com" and "Tabloid
Witch" and "Tabloid Witch Award" trademarks are
currently unregistered, but pending registration upon need for
protection against improper use. The idea of marketing these terms as a
commodity is a protected idea under the Lanham Act. 15 U.S.C. s 1114(1)
(1994) (defining a trademark infringement claim when the plaintiff has a
registered mark); 15 U.S.C. s 1125(a) (1994) (defining an action for
unfair competition in the context of trademark infringement when the
plaintiff holds an unregistered mark). All content is copyright by
HollywoodInvestigator.com unless otherwise noted.
[HollywoodInvestigator.com]
