Dark Reel (DVD)
Reviewed by Heather Wixson
Starring Tiffany Shepis, Edward Furlong, Lance Henriksen, Tony Todd, Rick Baker
Directed by Josh Eisenstadt
Distributed by North American Motion Pictures
With a cast full of familiar faces to genre fans- Lance Henriksen, Edward Furlong, Tiffany Shepis, Tony Todd, and Mercedes McNab, one would almost go into a viewing of Dark Reel with somewhat higher than average expectations. The movie gets really close to delivering but somehow fails, mostly due to an overambitious script and story.
In the film, we start off with the tragic story of 50s film starlet Scarlett May, who is lured to a shady casting call and then murdered and hacked to bits on film. The movie then fast forwards to present day where we meet vicious producer Connor Pritchett (Henriksen) who is overseeing his newest project The Pirate Wench where horror fanboy/actor wannabee Adam Waltz (Furlong) has just won a walk-on role in what is sure to be another B-movie to add to the pantheon of Pritchett’s projects (which includes other fictional titles including Gnome Killer and Snakes on a Crane).
Waltz gets thrown in with the excess of this level of movie-making and most of the cast and crew are pretentious self-absorbed douchebags- except for the warm-hearted Scream Queen Cassie Blue (Shepis) who takes a liking to Waltz and the normality he brings to the set and to her life.
Suddenly, cast members and associates around them start dropping like proverbial flies and right around the same time, Waltz seems to become aware that the ghost of Scarlett May is haunting the set of movie. It’s up to him and his lady love Blue to figure out just what her death has to do with the making of The Pirate Wench and just why those around them keep falling prey to a vicious murderer.
Dark Reel is a bit of a schizophrenic offering in terms of genre fare. Most of the movie felt like it wanted to be a supernatural thriller and the other part felt like it was aspiring to be a slasher flick. It never achieved anything in terms of successful execution of either genre. Dark Reel felt like a very uneven film, like writer/director Josh Eisenstadt just couldn’t find his footing enough and just got too ambitious for his own good.
The cast itself did well despite the material. Henriksen was great as usual (frankly, if he slept on camera, that would still be a top-notch performance) and Shepis was stunning and fantastic in her role as a “Scream Queen with a Heart of Gold” and somehow, I feel like this performance was very similar to her personality off-screen. Furlong wasn’t bad but there’s just something about him as a grown-up that kind of creeps me out. The only minor disappointment was Todd’s turn as Detective Shields as it felt forced and a bit excessive, something that Todd is definitely not known for as an actor (which would lead me to assume it was how the part was written). One fun thing for genre fans- watch and see if you can find Rick Baker’s cameo in the film.
Overall, Dark Reel comes so close to being a pretty decent horror flick but its being part ghost story and part slasher flick just end up making it seem like for me that someone filmed two separate movies and wove them together. Dark Reel just missed the mark.
The bonus features themselves are actually pretty decent and the one shining moment amongst them was the mini-movie on The Making-of Gnome Killer 2. I might actually consider sitting down to watch that flick.
Special Features:
2 1/2 out of 5
Special Features:
3 1/2 out of 5
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