Left In Darkness (2006)

I really liked this movie, although I initially didn't expect it to be much good. Overall it was a really nice afterlife flick.If you're a Christian you might be disappointed, because how you led your life obviously doesn't matter all too much in this version of the "purgatory". Also, "hell" doesn't try to tempt you into going there, being shown blatantly for what it is. That left aside the film actually manages to provide some likable characters. The acting isn't the best of the best, but I've seen much much ... much worse. There is much talk in this film and close to no gore. Still it manages to not get boring. I found the plot easy to follow and the rules of the afterlife simple to understand. There aren't too many rules anyway, if you turn your brains on it comes down to two or three, although they get reiterated from time to time.If you've got a movie night coming up with some friends that don't like gore but still want to have something that would count as a horror movie, this one isn't a bad choice at all.

I caught this on cable the other night, and to be honest I wasn't expecting much. You don't expect much from Zone Horror, not after a while - there are an awful lot of Z-grade turkeys on that channel, but occasionally they do come up with a gem, almost in spite of themselves. This film isn't quite a lost diamond, but it's not at all bad.If nothing else, the writer and director have a bit of imagination. The plot goes like this: Celia goes to a party, messes about with a ouija board, then gets raped and murdered. Most films would take a drearily predictable tack at this point - Celia has to ensure that her killer is brought to justice, yadda yadda. You can see half a dozen movies with that plot on any given evening, if you really want to.But this film takes another tack. Celia finds herself in something like Purgatory, a dangerous place inhabited by creatures who will eat your soul, given half a chance. By working through the ghosts of her past, and working with her 'imaginary' friend from childhood, she has to try to escape and get to, presumably, Heaven.The bad news is that the budget was obviously about seven dollars. Purgatory is represented by something that looks very like suburbia, and there is at least one scene too many set in the front of a car. Parts of the plot are slightly repetitive, too, and the dialogue isn't particularly memorable.But - and it's a very big but - everyone involved obviously cared about this movie. The acting is more than competent, especially from David Anders as the morally ambiguous childhood friend, who is a rarity in this type of horror film - a really interesting character. The movie whooshes along at a good clip, the plot actually makes some sense, and I found myself genuinely caring about Celia's plight, which was totally unexpected.The most surprising thing, for me, was the the director of this movie also did a couple of truly horrible films that I saw recently, It Waits and Sasquatch Mountain. This movie is, thank God, in a different class to those cheese-fests. Hopefully this means that Steven Monroe is getting the hang of this directing business, and we can expect more like this in the future.

i'm this guys bro,but i have to say, this is one of the most awesomely originally awesome horror flicks I've seen in a long,long time!! i was excited and scared through the whole thing! i loved the way it was written and filmed! the plot, the lack of gallons of blood, and the twists that prevented me from knowing what was coming next!!! absolutely amazing! please make more movies like this. u rule!!!your movie had hot chicks, ghouls, and insane parties! you cant argue with that. not to mention, you never left the same block that it happened on.easy to keep up with.other than that,i'm just filling space to get this notion to where u can eventually read it. loved your work,and really hope to see more in the future.

I was drawn to this film by it's interesting premise. Of course, as a straight to video film I wasn't really expecting much even though I hoped for the best. The film sat somewhere in the middle for me. It was enjoyable and somewhat interesting, but I couldn't help but feel it had much more potential than it displayed. Perhaps on a higher budget with a better script, we could have seen something really special. When the movie was over, I shrugged... I wasn't overly satisfied, yet not disappointed. But as far as straight to video films go, this one is definitely in the upper class.And what was up with Monica Keena's lips?