Beneath the Darkness (2011)

"Beneath the Darkness" was a great movie in some ways, but also a somewhat mediocre movie in others. It was like taking a trip back to the late 1980's or early 1990's story-wise. Personally I found the story a little bit too far fetched for my liking, as I didn't think that any rational and sane person would return to the house after seeing a friend killed. But hey, wouldn't be much of a movie if they didn't, eh?

The story in "Beneath the Darkness" is about a couple of young people who break into a mortician's house as they believe it to be haunted. And seeing silhouettes dancing in the window just adds to their belief that something ghostly is going on. But the Ely mortuary holds a dark secret past.

I enjoyed the movie, well most of it anyway. Right up until you find out about the reason for Ely's behaviour and what caused him to do what he does. That was just a rather silly turn of events in my opinion, and it didn't really do justice to the movie. But to top it off, the movie had to end in a very laughable manner. I will not reveal the ending here, but personally I found that ending to be one of the worst endings to an otherwise alright thriller.

What I really enjoyed most in the movie was Dennis Quaid's (playing Ely) performance. He was really doing a great job coming off as the somewhat psychotic and disturbingly creepy mortician. (Right up to the ending, that is.) And the people they had cast for the roles of Abby and Travis, played by Aimee Teegarden and Tony Oller respectively, also did good jobs.

There weren't all that much suspense to the movie, sadly enough. And it was a fairly straight forward and well-paced movie, just with a couple of odd twists here and there. I think that "Beneath the Darkness" could have been a much better movie with some improvements. But all in all, it was an alright enough experience (right up to the ending).

I am giving "Beneath the Darkness" a 5/10 rating only because it was lacking suspense and because the ending was just downright ridiculous.

Fmovies: First let me say I love Dennis Quaid and just about every movie I've seen him in. This movie however totally dropped the ball. Basically, the first half of the movie had a very bizarre assortment of scenes thrown together, only half of which actually tied into the plot. Not mention the transition of the scenes also made it difficult to understand. For instance, one moment you would jump from one time to another, then you'd suddenly jump from one reality to another. Regardless, that is not my biggest complaint of this movie. The most obvious flaw comes after you get past the fluctuation of scenes that fail to follow any chronological or reasonable order. Even an amateur in filming would know the single most important part of motion picture is to have a picture. The second half of the movie was filmed in the dark and I mean IN THE DARK! I kid you not, in most action scenes you simply couldn't see anything. It was like I was suddenly given the understanding of what it was like for Ray Charles to watch a movie. After it was over, my friend turned off the TV and when I saw the blank screen, I thought we had began watching a sequel!

I was hugely looking forward to "Beneath the Darkness" when it played at the annual Brussels Festival of Fantastic Films during a midnight screening, because I was told – and I eagerly believed – that it was an uncompromising and outrageous horror/thriller that granted Dennis Quaid the opportunity to depict a psychotic and derailed small Texas-town serial killer. Dennis Quaid as a crazed mortician! What avid genre fanatic wouldn't look forward to this? Together with a theater full of enthusiast people, I expected a tremendously high body count, lots of pitch-black humor, perverted undertones and a totally whack Dennis Quaid one-man-show. Things didn't exactly turn out as favorable … I wouldn't go as far to call "Beneath the Darkness" a disastrous film, but it's definitely a bit too ambitious and wannabe intelligent for its own good. Quaid's character Ely Vaughn, the local undertaker who's still highly admired within the community because he used to be a star quarterback in high school, is indeed an utterly disturbed individual but he's not a maniac on a rampage. Quite the contrary, in fact, Ely is a very distinguished person and his dark side only comes to the surface when a couple of school kids decide to sniffle around in his private business. The first five minutes of the film, as well as the final fifteen, are very entertaining and exciting, not coincidentally because these are the only times that Quaid gets to showcase his evil grimaces and madman capacities. Everything in between is just an overlong series of clichéd and derivative situations. Of course nobody believes the teenagers when they're accusing one of the most prominent town members of being a psychopath and obviously the cheerleader beauty will gradually fall for the outsider nerd instead of her cowardly jock boyfriend. And then I'm not even talking about the pointless sub plot of the nerdy kid who still feels responsible for his little sister's death ten years ago and the difficult relationship with his mother. That was completely irrelevant and downright redundant. In spite of being the big star of the picture, Dennis Quaid actually has surprisingly little screen time and – frankly – nearly not enough chances to illustrate the craziness of his character's persona. This is one giant missed opportunity, to say the least.

Beneath the Darkness fmovies. As also mentioned from other reviewers there are similarities between Mr. Brooks and this film. If Mr. Brooks is a Crime/Drama/Mystery film, this film cannot be a horror film, because Mr. Brooks has definitely harder scenes as this one. I don't know if the makers of this movie claim that they filmed a horror movie. If yes then it is a really poor horror film and you will be disappointed as a horror movie fan. But if you watch it as a Crime/Thriller it is watchable and not a waste of time. It depends on what your expectation is. In marketing the product must be declared correctly: if you declare horror in a product, horror must be in the product.

In the music business there is a genre named easy-listening, translated into the movie business I would say this film is a "easy-watching" film: not bad and not really good.

I looked at the IMDb rating, thought I would give this movie a go.

What a waste of time! It is like watching paint dry or waiting for grass to grow. A complete waste of 90 or so minutes.

How anyone would dare to compare this pile of junk to Jack Nicholson in the Shining beggars belief.

This movie is not fit to lick the boots of that movie.

The characters are 2 dimensional, who thought this garbage up? Do yourselves a favour - go and watch The Shining, this isn't worth a dime, it was actually painful to try and sit through the movie. It certainly isn't horror, and it is barely a movie.

That's how this excellent little mystery-horror film from 2011 struck me, and I mean that in a good way.

PLOT: Dennis Quaid plays a creepy mortician in a central Texas town. A group of teens decide to trespass his abode for thrills and everything goes awry.

Quaid and cutie Aimee Teegarden head the cast, but it's Tony Oller who shines here as the troubled protagonist. He's very reminiscent of Robby Benson.

Like I said, the story is akin to a Scooby-Doo yarn, but realistic and without the dog. Although Quaid is over-the-top and somewhat campy as the villain the rest of the cast play it straight. I was surprised by the dramatic score and a few really touching scenes.

Some complain that the subplot of a dead sister and a ghost sighting goes nowhere, but it's there for a reason, just think about it.

Although there's some realistic cussing there's zero raunch.

BOTTOM LINE: I was pleasantly surprised by this great little film. It's classy, sometimes moving, mysterious and thrilling at the same time. What more could you ask for in a movie of this ilk?

Shot in Bastrop & Smithville, Texas, the film runs 96 minutes.

GRADE: A- or B+