Dark Remains (2005)

Directed by: Brian Avenet-Bradley
Format: DVD
DVD Features: commentary, trailer, behind the scenes, deleted scenes, prison featurette
Starring: Cheri Christian, Greg Thompson, Scott Hodges, Jeff Evans, Patrick G. Keenan
trailer

(Thanks go to our reader Carrie for suggesting this review!)

The loss of a child is an event that parents deal with in different ways. Although sadness is a natural response, grief can manifest itself in many forms. Some people feel anger. Some blame themselves. Some turn to a higher power. If the parents in question happen to be in a movie though, two methods of coping are almost guaranteed to surface. One of them is watching a lot of home movies (do people still make those?) and the other seems to be moving.

When the daughter of Julie and Allen Pyke is murdered, the couple decides to rent a cabin in the hills. Mr. Pyke hopes that the relocation will provide a welcome escape and a place for his wife to recover. Julie makes her living as a professional photographer, but lost interest in her camera after the incident. With a little prodding, Allen convinces her to take a look around and try a few snapshots of the area. When she stumbles upon an abandoned prison, something strange develops. Friends of the Pykes come to visit and leave in a hurry. The cabin's hillbilly caretaker tips the couple off about the prior occupants and their grim fate. When Mr. Pyke does some digging at the town library, he discovers a string of strange deaths. It's looking more and more like the couple should vacate the premisis, but Julie has decided to stay.

Dark Remains looks very much like a low-budget movie shot with a high-budget camera. The colors are crisp and vibrant. The shots are steady and focused. While not particularly creative as far as angles and technique go, the cinematography is solid and doesn't suffer from an overdone arthaus effort (like Fay Grim). I can respect that. I can also respect a special-effects guy who's handy with the latex, spirit glue and red corn syrup. His skills are more readily apparent in the special features than in the actual film (which, perhaps, is the true test). Thank goodness the filmmakers went the old-fashioned way when it came to makeup, because if this movie had any cheap CGI, I don't think I could have sat all the way through it.

Now that the few redeeming aspects of Dark Remains have been identified, I can set to work tearing this thing apart (sorry Carrie). Where do I begin? Ah yes, the - "acting". Julie Pyke, greiving mother, is played by Cheri Christian. She seems terribly familiar to me and I thought I may have seen her as Will's love interest in Good Will Hunting. Turns out that character was played by Minnie Driver (both have that powerful jawline and chipmunk cheeks). Her character suffers from a lack of committment at best. Every time Julie announces that she refuses to do something or is determined to do another, it takes mere seconds for her to change her mind. There's no serious emotion expressed by this woman, aside from an exceptionally brief and barely tearful breakdown. As it turns out, Christian shares a cast listing in several other movies with Greg Thompson, who plays Julie's husband, Allen. Thompson his hardly a better actor. His character is more of a father than a husband, constantly following Julie around and demanding to know what she's doing. He's annoying and also boring. The only actor in this movie who is reasonably watchable is Scott Hodges. He does his best with the script as the backwoods caretaker Jim. In fact, I'm not so sure that the man isn't a creepy hillbilly in reality. I don't even want to go into the few supporting actors that remain. Maybe I should take it easy on the actors though. Maybe they aren't really to blame for the terrible characters. There is, after all, the horrible script to consider.

After watching Dark Remains, I'm left with a series of questions. 1.) How does Allen find his wife at the prison, in the dark, when he's never been there before? 2.) Shouldn't it be the county's duty to chain the doors of the abandoned prison closed, not Mr. Pyke's? 3.)How does Julie find her way back into the prison without unlocking any chains? 4.)Why does the sherrif pop in for a visit, at night, only to harrass the residents, "you didn't kill your daughter, did you? I had to ask." 5.) Why does the movie otherwise completely neglect the subject of an investigation into their child's death? That could have made a better film than this did. 6.) After the prior resident shot himself, why did the cops leave the gun laying around for the next guy to find? 7.) In a horror movie, why does the actual discovery of a body happen off-screen?! 8.) What's the deal with the coffee/tea situation?

What's the scare factor in Dark Remains? Nearly nil. Admittedly, a couple of brief shots made me jump. The problem is that the few methods the filmmaker uses to try to scare the audience are the same three over and over again. One of them is to show a character in a close shot, show that person move, and have something creepy appear in the vacated spot. Another is to use reflections to show the aparitions and the third is a series of doors that move on their own.

The dialogue is so horrible in this movie, that it would almost be preferable to mute the damn thing and play some music instead. Wait, "almost"? I mean, "definitely". If I knew a good camera man and a buddy with a cabin I could borrow, even I could have done a better job than Brian Avenet-Bradley did. I guess that's what happens when the same guy writes, edits and directs the same movie. Thank god he didn't star in it. The producer/cinematographer? - I think she's his wife. Don't waste your time with Dark Remains. Even the trailer sucks. Sadly, it's still not the worst movie I've sever seen, which goes to show that I really will watch anything.

Overall Rating: 2 stars
Hottie Rating: 0 stars

Alternate Recommendation: Shutter
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