Saturday, May 18, 2019

Dark Spirits (2008)

Dark Spirits is a movie about a chick whose sister dies from some mysterious supernatural force and she has to figure out why it’s haunting her, too. The problem is that by the end, the audience still has no real clue. This was part of a box set of DVD movies from Walmart my friend found in his apartment, so you know it’ll be amazing!

Director: Huck Keppler
Starring: Milena Minichova

Co-written with Nathan.

The movie starts essentially like the 2003 classic The Room – which is to say, exactly like a porno, with bad lighting and camerawork, and two people having sex, except unfortunately here mostly with their clothes on. There’s really no difference other than that, though. The main girl Eva calls her sister later, who is a totally random woman who the movie wants us to believe is super close with her. The reason is to tell her sister that she had a dream of her walking into some desolate country house, like a bargain bin Texas Chainsaw, and getting grabbed by a ghost! You know – normal sister stuff!

Her sister is understandably skeptical – like, she probably heard this stuff every week while the main chick was in college and friends with that weird gypsy girl who had all the tea leaves and tarot cards and she's kinda done with it after all these years.

Then, the next morning, her boyfriend walks up extremely slowly to let her know her sister is dead – boy, was that fast. She takes it about like anyone would, with some crying and sitting at a table and whatnot – your usual bland depictions of sorrow. The Store Brand Box depictions of sorrow, really. There’s nothing at all in terms of who she is as a character. All she does the entire movie, really, is sit around an impressively bland apartment and write in a notebook. Thrilling stuff! Her apartment is so un-adorned and bland that I suspect she might be a serial murderer using it as a patsy for unsuspecting victims. Unfortunately the movie does not seize on this potential plot goldmine.

But don’t worry – there are plenty of weird scenes of her interacting with her boyfriend talking about different dimensions. And talking with some girl and a random homeless man about the concept of death or something. It’s seriously like they just took pages from a Philosophy 101 textbook and threw it hodge-podge into a screenplay. It has nothing really to do with the story.

So what IS the story? Well, I guess she keeps seeing ghosts and some mildly weird stuff happens to her. A few scares in the dark. But it’s not too bad, considering all the stuff that happens to people in better horror movies. This is kind of like the white privilege of horror movies. I think maybe the worst part is when she gets chased through the park by the homeless guy. But the next day, no kidding, he apologizes to her. What a good turnout! I wish more movie conflicts ended that way!

That stuff is positively rosy compared to how she is with her boyfriend, though – watch as these two barely actually touch each other and act mostly like two awkward people who were asked to act like they’re in a relationship. Amazing! It’s like I’m inside of a high school prom. Real interactive content.

Also, some detective shows up a few times, with the actor clearly stoned on camera. Why can’t he solve this crime? What are they paying him? I have some legitimate questions. His story essentially goes nowhere and, near the end of the movie, he gets killed by a ghost. Or maybe it’s not a ghost – it’s not really all that clear.

The main girl comes home and she sees her own dead body on the floor of the apartment. Wow! She should’ve cleaned that up! Then, I guess, she dies too, and is able to meet her dead sister in the ghost world. Given that these two characters acted stiff and cold toward each other already as if they barely knew each other, my guess is it’ll be exactly like they’re used to. I wonder what wacky ghost adventures they’ll go on. Hopefully it’ll be more interesting than this movie.

This was mostly harmless. I actually do like seeing low budget stuff like this and watching how people try to construct something scary – at least, it’s not some calculated corporate garbage. There is that. But it’s just not very good. It’s too slow and lacks any kind of compelling characters. It was kind of fun to see where it went, but the payoff was lacking. See it if you’ve got a bottomless appetite for this kind of fun schlock.

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