In the Dark (2004)

I hate movies like this because the germ of a good idea is there and you can see some talent in front of and behind the camera, but the final product is so far off base that it makes me really irritated.I think the actors were probably good, although it seems they were allowed to improvise too much. A stronger script would have been very beneficial here. As someone else noted, their characters were amazingly shallow. You could take any two of them and swap the actors portraying them and you wouldn't have been able to tell. And all they talk about is drugs. This reveals little about their characters and gets boring after a few minutes, but it just doesn't stop.Other problems? It takes too long to get to the meat of the story, i.e., getting the kids inside the asylum. We get long, drawn out explanations by a detective and a nurse and the kids themselves filling in the exposition, only none of them can muster up enough enthusiasm to tell the tale without taking mini-breaks for smoking, typing or horseplay. If they don't care about the legend of Lizzie, why should we?When the kids finally do realize that Lizzie is still in the asylum, they have moments of panic, then they revert back to their druggy horseplay, then another panic, then horseplay, then panic again. It seems to me that if I knew a psycho was running around loose trying to kill me, I would go to and remain on Red Alert and not calm back down like nothing had happened.The editing was awful. There was no artistic buildup of suspense, the lack of sound in some security camera shots but admitted in others was jarring. I got confused several times about who was holding the camcorder and in fact, how many camcorders there actually were. For a film that claimed to be a real documentary, the use of scary music and hard rock was out of place. The movie didn't know if it was pretending to be a documentary or a real movie.The good things: while I think the director tipped his hand by showing us LIzzie's scarred face near the beginning, her determined running style was truly frightening. Whenever she ran through a shot, I usually felt a chill. The shot of her face in the window being lit by the flashlight was a good one, too. But I would have given her a weapon. Strangling kids isn't that scary. I liked the idea of her sucking out Barry's eyeball, but if you'd included in the legend that Lizzie carried a sharped spoon for scooping out eyes, it would have strengthened her fear factor. The revelation by Drako (it's not really a twist) at the end was good, but didn't have the umph that it required. And could we have heard some screams as the fire spread and the door was held shut?I applaud the production of indie films, but this one had such potential and just missed its target. Pity.

Shameless asrtoturfing in the comments section, obvious in the first quarter of the film, warranted an IMDb registration. Don't fall for it, 'In The Dark' is one of the most sloppily conceived, hackneyed and unintentionally incoherent films in a long while. A group of wild teens break into an abandoned asylum on Halloween night to drink and get high and, their story told by the portable cameras left behind, come face to face with a 'presence' seeking revenge. In a vain attempt to relieve that mind numbing string of clichés the screenwriters employ an admittedly novel device, augmenting the shaky cams with scenes from the facility's security cameras. It's unconvincing and forced. All but one camera are so painfully and clearly positioned for the film instead of surveillance the main effect is annoyance. The characters never behave like people, befalling fates through a staggering display of stupidity and complete lack of sense for self preservation. Aware of a threat watching them from an asylum window as they party outside, the reaction is to run into the asylum. When one of them becomes too overwhelmed to cope, in this film's logic the thing to do is put her to bed in an isolated, unlocked and unguarded room away from the rest where she'll 'be safe'. Not that the viewer is given much reason to care. An all-purpose stream of overlapped yells too often substitutes for dialog - in this scene for fright, that one excess, the next one anger. Horror nor gore approaches that of Robocop 2 and the effects are... missing. The protagonists run around all film in freshly laundered pajamas grimacing.It's not hard to find zero-budget independent horror films that deliver. This isn't one of them.

I watched In the Dark last night. The acting of the main characters were awful, hammy at best. I didn't believe any of it while watching it, I wonder how someone could actually believe the movie was "real". And yes, they were acting, none of it was real. You even see the actors with the director and crew in the DVDs special features.Good aspects of the movie were that is was scary. Ashame that the biggest scare was at the beginning, when we get our first close-up of Lizzy, making you hope for more intense scares in the climax. Also, the back story confuses me a bit, like what about the girl that did die in the fire. They said there were two girls in the fire and Lizzy survived. I was expecting her ghost to appear. It makes me wonder if they are planning a sequel with the little talked about dead girl as an added twist. If they didn't market this movie as being "real" I would have more respect for the movie. Again, most of the acting was sooo bad and it wasn't real campy, something your could enjoy in spite of the quality. Besides the acting, the whole set up, dialog, filming and execution were trite and it insults the viewer.Jezebel

The plot is original and the camera shots are amazing. I'm still not sure if it is all real footage like the director says it is in the beginning of the film. If this is actual footage then it is pretty amazing stuff. I heard that at least some of the film is the actual footage from the real events. Either way, it is awesome. Each scene is dream-like and disturbing at the same time. The way the film is edited is wild. My favorite scenes in the film are the scenes in the crazy house and the silent scenes with the surveillance cameras! CREEPY! Plus, the rock-n-roll music rocks. This is one of my favorite horror films now. It will be a cult classic, no doubt. Trippy film! Loved it.