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Darkest Night
Philippines 2012
produced by Noel Tan, Russ Williams (executive), DJ Perry (co) for Gothic Pictures International, Collective Development
directed by Noel Tan
starring DJ Perry, Anne Gauthier, Issa Litton, Nic Campos, Jill Palencia, Justin Hoong-Fai Chan, Zeny Sevilla, Kevin Vitug, Elle Velasco, Marife Necesito, Jonas Gruet, Allan Dale Alojipan, Raymond Osmena, JAmes Lomahan, Czarina Llane Kwong, Shierdan Pamintuan, Alexandra Marie Tan, Crisanto Garrido, Christian Tan, Chris Joshua Tan, Giann Paula Martizano, Stefano Rota, Trixie Dauz
written by Russ Williams, music by Sonny Dave Flores Taclibon
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
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Susan (Anne Gauthier) returns from Manila to her family home in the
country for Christmas to introduce her fiancé Ken (DJ Perry) to her vast
family - and everyone's so happy to see the, everyone but the de
facto-head of the family Michelle (Issa Litton), who's full of reproach
almost from the get-go. Then, at Christmas dinner, there's an earthquake,
the power's cut, neither phones nor cars are working no more, and then
family members start disappearing, and some are found buried alive, or
they return as zombies, or horribly mutilated, or body-modified. Other
family members die without proper reason and the like. Susan tries to find
out what's going on, and does find out that the new-found religion of
Michelle is actually a Satanic cult, and what's currently going on is
actually part of a black magic ritual. Problem is of course, the ritual
has gone out of hand, and eventually even Michelle gets killed by what she
has summoned. With the number of survivors getting dangerously low,
Susan decides to hold a séance according to Michelle's book of spells.
But who's to say a séance isn't only going to make things worse? Now
I will say this, Darkest Night is a less than perfect film: It
suffers from a too large cast of characters so it takes a while to find
someone to care about, the story takes quite a while to kick into gear and
transcend beyond the film's soap opera like set-up, and most of all, its
found footage approach isn't at all justified and doesn't add any new
layer to the story, but seems to be an excuse for lazy editing (but at
least it's nicely executed). But that's not to say Darkest Night
is an at all bad movie, actually once the horrific events start to pile
one upon the other, it's lots of fun, plus the movie finds its balance
between suspense, atmosphere and shock. Seriously, it's good genre
entertainment - it just could have been better ...
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