Dark Ride Year: 2006 Director: Craig Singer Written by: Robert Dean Klein, Craig Singer Threat: Psychopath Weapon of Choice: Knife Based upon: none Color/B&W/3D: colour Language: English Country of Origin: USA IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
Please see the After Dark Horrorfest series page.

Rish's Reviews
So, after missing the After Dark Horrorfest on the weekend it played in theatres (my job prevented me from seeing them, though it may be possible to catch them if they do it again this November), I very much wanted to see the films on video. In fact, if I recall, I insisted to tyranist that one day I'd bring over all eight films (someone said there were nine, but ah well) and watch them through a long, entertaining night.
We made it through two.
Okay, wait, that's not entirely true. Tyranist made it through two. I fell asleep toward the end of Dark Ride.
Or is it Darkride? I'd much rather call it Dark Ride, and I'm going to continue to do so until tyranist sets me straight.
In Dark Ride, a group of college students head off for spring break in a big van. For some reason, they decide to spend the night in a boardwalk funhouse with a murderous history. As fate would have it, the maniac who committed those long ago murders escapes from the asylum at the exact same time. There's no telling where he'll go, is there?
You know, I probably should've liked this movie more. Its familiar premise, while as played out as A Christmas Story on TNT,* still should've thrilled and delighted me, because hey, I'm a simple man with simple tastes. But there was a lot I didn't like about this film.
Mostly, though, it's that it was just mediocre from beginning to end, with lame characters, a few illogical and/or stupid moments, and scares that didn't work. They never created a spooky atmosphere, the protagonists were utterly despisable (I'm wondering if serial killers find it easier to start committing murder because they spend their time around people like this), but worst of all, it was dull.
I gotta talk about my second-to-last criticism for a moment here. The way I see it, there are two possible reasons why filmmakers would intentionally make characters unlikable. One is so that the main/positive characters seem more sympathetic and you hope they survive/succeed. The other is so that the audience longs for the unlikable characters to get their comuppance; for us to feel a kind of catharsis when they meet their well-deserved end. But the only reason I can think of that you would make all of your characters unsympathetic (and downright despicable--the word I should've used above instead of the made up word "depisable") is so the audience wants them all to die; so we root for the killer . . . in essence, so we relate to the killer, we associate ourselves with him (or them). That's somewhat disturbing to me.
Not that I feel there was any actual thought going into that. No, this was just insultingly bad writing at work here. One character was so negative, so unpleasant, so downright nasty that I started to wonder if we had missed a subplot where the devil had lost a wager and had to take the form of a twenty-something girl.
Also, this was one of those movies where the pursuit continues for extended periods, and of course, tension is hard to sustain for a length of time. We become bored, apathetic, or in my case . . . unconscious.
But it's not THAT bad a movie, really. At least there wasn't a lot of reliance on computer-generated effects. See, a silver lining and we can all walk away happy.
I'd Recommend It To: I was going to tell people to stay away. I even started to, and then I remembered the beheading-while-giving-head scene. That, my friends, was pretty recommendable.
*The story isn't a new one. Tobe Hooper made a film about kids who sneak into a closed funhouse at night with a deranged murderer inside. Dean Koontz wrote a book about a mentally deficient killer who lived in a carnival funhouse. There's a Ray Bradbury novel with a malevolent carnival in it, and it was made into a film around the same time as the other two examples. And that's just off the top of my head.
Posted: July 4, 2007

The tyranist's thoughts
When Rish and I were perusing the After Dark section at the local video purveyor, I kept coming back to this one simply because it had the best cover. But as the adage says, you should never, ever judge a straight-to-DVD (or nearly in this case) offering by its cover. Down that road lies madness.
Carnivals are a bit creepy by nature. Haunted house rides are designed to be even creepier. Spending a night in one, is not something I've ever considered. After all, I've seen all of the movies and read all of the books that Rish mentioned and I know better. But apparently some people are stupid. On top of their stupidity, they are pretty unlikeable people. Perhaps this is a sign that I'm slowly transitioning out of the key demographic for horror films. Perhaps all of the kids today treat each other with a great deal of spite and contempt. Perhaps they all talk to each other like they are filled with hate and loathing in the moments when they are aren't simply being jackasses. Or, perhaps, the writer of this screenplay doesn't actually understand human interaction and mistook all of that for hip and clever wordplay.
Whatever the case, it sucked.
The killer is a bit frightening the first couple times we see him, but his efficacy wears out fast. And soon the chase through the seemingly endless carnival ride just seems endless. I don't think it was even half way through when I just sort of stopped caring and hoped the movie would wrap up soon.
This film has been made before and been made better (although, I think if you dig it up--I can't be arsed at the moment--you'll find we also hated that movie). No reason to see this one.
Posted: July 4, 2007

Total Skulls: 27

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film		Funhouse
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?