Cinema Crazed

2006

Rated: R for gore, graphic violence, torture, and strong sexual content.

Genre: Horror Thriller

Directed By: Craig Singer

Running Time: 1:34

Review by: Felix Vasquez Jr.

Review Date: 5/12/07

Special Features:
Commentary by director Craig Singer and producer Chris M. Williams
"Ticket to Ride" featurette
"Behind the Mask" featurette
Deleted scenes
Storyboard montage
Trailers

DARK RIDE

I’m confused. I mean “See No Evil” sucked the first time, so why did Singer figure people would want to see it again? “Dark Ride” is many things, and one in particular, is a remake of “See No Evil.” And the similarities just continue on from there, even with both movies royally sucking. How cliché can you get? A towering psycho. No. A towering disfigured psycho. No, further. A towering bald disfigured psycho. No, further. A towering bald disfigured psycho with the strength of ten men. No, further. A towering bald disfigured psycho with the strength of ten men who just broke out of a mental asylum! Now we have the picture. And I’m not too happy with the end result. “Dark Ride” is a typical slasher that’s not even good in spite of its run of the mill premise, and characters.

What Singer does is pad the film for as long as humanly possible with utterly mind-numbing characterization that goes nowhere. “Dark Ride” is nothing but a ninety minute lead-up to the finale. Before all of that we follow a small group of the dumbest and most obnoxious characters you can see in a horror film, visiting the largest cliché and plot device in film history, all for no purpose but to deliver the cheesy surprise ending. I sat there literally falling asleep at the idiocy and vapid attempted exposition we experience with these numbskulls.

Two characters are movie buffs, there’s a pot head hitchhiker, and all of this basically drags along at a snails pace. Nothing happens for about an hour before the final pay off with out serial killer who seems to enjoy hearing their stories. That would explain why he doesn’t just off them one by one like a competent slasher. What’s the point of sitting with these shit heads if we’re only going to be promised killing? And even when it manages to pay off with gutting and gore, “Dark Ride” fails to achieve the slightest bit of tension or suspense. The killer we’re forced to watch is nothing more than a Jacob Goodnight clone, a character that wasn’t interesting to begin with. And then we have to buy the forced surprise climax that’s neither entertaining, nor morbid, while Jamie Lynn Sigler fails to compel as a horror heroine. “Dark Ride” is an exhausting piece of derivative crap that officially earns its title as the worst of the “After Dark Horrorfest” series.

Character elements are left dangling, sub-plots are unresolved, and sub-plots appear from nowhere, all with the expectancy of dismissing it all because it's a slasher film. "Dark Ride" fails to entertain, amuse, and stir the gore hound in me, and for that it should be kicked into the darkest hole.

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