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Reporters Farraday (Daniel Roebuck) and Tuesday (Jennifer Blaire) make
it to an old dark house in the middle of nowhere just in time for the
reading of a will, read of course during a thunderstorm that washes all
bridges away that connect the mansion to the rest of the world. Of
course, everything in the will goes to the pretty and innocent but frail
ward of the deceased, Sabasha (Fay Masterson), but before the family
lawyer can read the addendum to the will as well, he is killed and the
letter containing the addendum is stolen. Somehow our two reporters get to
conduct the investigations, and they are faced with a house full of
suspects and eccentrics, including the deceased's disowned nephew Burling
(Brian Howe), his cheating wife (Christine Romeo), her lover (Kevin
Quinmn), a medium (Alison Martin), a safari guide (Jim Beaver), and of
course the guy who claims to have stopped by just by accident (Larry
Blamire) who will eventually be revealed to be an FBI-agent. The whole
thing is not made any easier by the fact that every time someone wants to reveal
something about the case, the light goes out and he or she drops dead, and
by the fact that one person in the house might be a strangler escaped from
the asylum next door. After much chasing through corridors, the
discovery of secret passageways aplenty, people dropping like flies and
the revelation that the dead man had a disfigured and mad daughter (Susan
McConnell) locked away in the attic, whom he leaves everything to in the
end, it is revealed that there are not one but two killers, on one hand
the disowned Burling, on the other Sabasha, who is really not Sabasha at
all but the mad strangler. Of course, the baddies get their just
desserts, and in case you care, our two reporter heroes, who have
quarrelled all through the movie, decide to get married. Basically,
Dark and Stormy Night is a hommage to and parody of old dark house
murder mysteries popular especially in the 1930's and 40's, and as such
it's pretty good but far from perfect: It's good because it remains on
target throughout, the direction and camerawork are perfect in recreating
the mood of the movies of old (and thus the film is shot in glorious
black-and-white),
the ensemble fits the requirements and the comedy is always topical and
never veers off into cheap jokes or bathroom humour. The film is by no
means perfect though because while it's funny, it features hardly any
jokes not already present in the countless genre parodies from back in the
day, and because direction-wise it never tries to elevate itself above the
directorial style of old - in a word, this film is pretty much a rehash, a
very accomplished one no doubt, and one can't blame the filmmakers for
doing what they did (especially as a fan of these old films), but the film
could have amounted to more. Still, the whole thing is good fun ...
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