Film Threat review of “The Darkness Within”

Film Threat review of “The Darkness Within”

Aug 02

4.5 Stars
Year Released: 2009
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Running Time: 90 minutes

Dom Portalla’s award-winning “The Darkness Within” is a psychological-thriller that messes with the mind in that surreptitious way that shocker-addicts only dream about, but very rarely see in contemporary film. With an ending that will trip up even the most seasoned chiller-investigator, “Darkness” has a tightly constructed plot that seems cut from the same MacGuffin-ridden cloth as the one used by Hitchcock—and that’s quite a feat.

In Portalla’s story, freelance videographer Chad Morgan (Jimmy Scanlon) and his fiancé Ashley Sera (Michelle Romano) move into a basement apartment in a working class neighborhood. Chad, a bespectacled, geeky-type really lucks out with the gorgeous and vivacious Ashley, who works as a bartender at a local establishment. Chad and Ashley fix up their home, deal with pesky spiders, and have the usual tiffs newly engaged couples have—until we see that things are not quite as normal as they could be. For one thing, there’s that creepy neighbor named Mr. Reed (Ken Flott), who appears to be a voyeur. Then there’s the trash-talking landlord’s daughter (Stephanie Maheu), who passes the time smoking weed, playing video games, and leading Chad down the path of booze-laden destruction. Of course, Chad is easily led in that direction because as we soon learn, he has a history of alcoholism, which seems to affect his personality in not so nice ways. It turns out his sweet fiancé has a past, too, and is constantly having to explain why her Ex keeps leaving messages on a cell phone that she all too easily forgets at home. Ahhh… life on the home-front—but what’s with Mr. Reed???

Portalla’s film may not be perfect, with those occasional moments of actorial-choppiness and a few irritating pacing-issues that may or may not have roots in post-production, but for the most part, “The Darkness Within” comes as close to Indie-heaven as any new thriller could, and is a film that’s well worth a gander. Believe me, you won’t be disappointed.

Posted on August 2, 2011 in Reviews by
Amy R. Handler

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Pick up a copy of “The Darkness Within” Special Edition DVD by clicking the link below!

Rogue Cinema review of “The Darkness Within”

Rogue Cinema review of “The Darkness Within”

Apr 03

Film Reviews: The Darkness Within (2009) – By Cary Conley

As a movie reviewer, I can’t tell you how many times I have received “thrillers” that are characterized in their synopses as “Hitchcockian.” I always take a deep breath and then let out a long sigh, as the vast majority of these films don’t bear the slightest resemblance to a Hitchcock film. So it was that I sat down to watch “The Darkness Within” with more than a little reservation, for it is being billed as influenced by not only Hitchcock, but Kubrick as well.

Right off the bat, I must say I was very pleasantly surprised. There actually were some Hitchcockian moments, while the main storyline bears a striking resemblance to Kubricks “The Shining” (in fact, I believe at one point a character from the film actually draws a comparison with Kubrick’s film). Lest you think this is a rip-off, writer-director Dom Portalla manages to take Kubrick’s plot and turn it on its ear to create an inventive and tense little thriller.

Chad (Jimmy Scanlon) and Ashley (Michelle Romano) are excited to be moving to a new town and starting their lives over. Chad has just proposed to Ashley and the happy couple is eager to move into their newly rented apartment and get a fresh start. There are only two problems: the less-than-genial next-door neighbor and the huge spiders that seem to crop up on a regular basis. The spider incidents inject some fabulous humor into the story as Chad chastises Ashley about her embellishment of the spider’s size until Chad walks into the bathroom and shrieks like a girl, running from the room in astonishment. He comes racing back in wearing goggles, rubber gloves and carrying a can of hairspray to kill the thing. I laughed out loud at the entire sequence–it was genuinely funny.

Chad goes in search of the landlord who is supposed to live in the apartment above him only to find that the landlord’s daughter and sometime boyfriend live there. Jordan (Stephanie Maheu) and Dixon (Sean Pierce) spend their days smoking weed, drinking beer, playing video games and insulting each other with biting sarcasm. These sequences are also laugh-out-loud funny as the jokesters gleefully spew vulgarities at each other as well as Chad. These sequences are welcome in the film as they serve to lighten the more tense scenes with the weirdo next door.

Just after the happy couple has moved in, Chad wakes in the middle of the night to go to the restroom where he catches his neighbor, Mr. Reed (Ken Flott) peeking in the bathroom window. I felt this sequence was very much in the style of Hitchcock, with stylish lighting and an eerie atmosphere–it was quite scary. What I was most impressed with was the fact that Portalla was able to create this scary scene without the use of cheap cinematic tricks like loud music and quick cutting. The initial sequence plays out very quietly in one long scene, catching the viewer completely off-guard.

The next day, Chad goes to talk to Mr. Reed, but the friendly chat quickly disintegrates into an ugly confrontation. So begins the disintegration of a character as well as a relationship. Chad can’t shake the paranoia he feels–like he’s being watched all the time. He notices little things are moved when he comes back to the apartment and he begins to have nightmares. He sleeps less and less. As his entire demeanor changes, it begins to strain his relationship with Ashley. He spends less time with her and more time upstairs with his newfound friends, getting high and drinking. Some revelations are made: while a normally quiet and low-key guy, Chad has a history of being a mean drunk while Ashley is trying to win back Chad’s trust after an incident of infidelity. Chad takes to keeping a huge axe nearby at all times, for protection he claims, but Ashley isn’t quite comfortable with this. As Chad’s paranoia continues to increase, he involves the police, who can’t really find any probable cause, just empty claims. But it certainly enrages Mr. Reed to know that he’s being investigated. More coincidences occur: Chad’s car won’t start; Ashley’s old flame begins calling. This just increases Chad’s anxiety, and he takes to videotaping his windows at all hours of the day and night.

Chad begins to lose his grip on reality. Is his weird neighbor really watching his every move, or is Chad’s drinking becoming more of a problem? Is he having a nervous breakdown, or is his neighbor intentionally targeting him for some unknown reason? While the film has shades of Samuel L. Jackson’s “Lakewood Terrace” and elements of 2007′s underrated “Disturbia,” as stated before, the parallels with “The Shining” are the most striking. The cast consists of six primary characters, including Chad and Ashley, Jordan and Dixon, Mr. Reed and the cop that gets involved, Detective Winters. The acting is uniformly solid, especially by Michelle Romano, who shows a remarkable range of emotions as the persecuted Ashley, who is trying to hang onto a relationship that is rapidly falling apart, as well as Ken Flott as Mr. Reed. Flott makes excellent use of his fairly limited screen time and is thoroughly convincing in the first half of the film as the withdrawn and possibly dangerous next-door neighbor. But as Chad begins to lose his grip on reality and the audience becomes less sure of Chad’s version of events, some sympathy is generated for a neighbor who might not be bad at all–just someone who doesn’t understand why he’s being persecuted by this new, young punk. Jimmy Scanlon, who portrays Chad, also delivers a fine performance, understated in the beginning as his character is portrayed as a laid-back, all-around good guy and increasingly hysterical as his world begins to fall apart. Both Stephanie Maheu and Sean Pierce are very entertaining as the dysfunctional couple upstairs that is constantly whacked out on weed and booze, but both also show some dramatic chops in brief scenes towards the end of the film.

Portalla has shown his skills by directing several short films (three of which are included as extras on the DVD), but with this, his first full-length feature, he proves to have a remarkably mature hand at directing this taut thriller. His choice of music is also very good and only serves to enhance the build-up of anxiety throughout the film.

Beside the short films, other extras include a gag reel, trailers and a music video. I thoroughly enjoyed this film and recommend that others try to see it, too. The film was an official selection of the 2010 Magnolia Film Festival and the 2010 Fright Night Film Fest. More information can be found at http://www.doorelevenproductions.com.

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Pick up a copy of “The Darkness Within” Special Edition DVD by clicking the link below!

Cultcuts Magazine mini-capsule review of “The Darkness Within”

Cultcuts Magazine mini-capsule review of “The Darkness Within”

Mar 22

THE DARKNESS WITHIN
2009 – NR – 89 Minutes
D: Dom Portalla
S: Jimmy Scanlon, Michelle Romano, Ken Flott, Stephanie Maheu, Sean Pierce, David Wilson
DVD Courtesy ofDoor Eleven Productions
Widescreen/Stereo
Extras: Teaser, Trailer, Gag Reel, Music Video, Short Subjects

Chad Morgan and his fiancée Ashley move into a new apartment. It’s small, rather dumpy, but affordable and a place where they can begin a new life together. Or at least they think they can. Within a short time they discover the place has a spider infestation and a strange landlord situation, plus Chad has an unpleasant run-in with a neighbor named Mr. Reed, who just might be a Peeping Tom and possibly worse. But all that is just the tip of the iceberg. When Chad learns what’s really going on and why he actually ended up moving into the apartment, his entire world starts to fall apart. Writer/director Dom Portalla does an admirable job mounting the suspense in this SOV thriller. From a technical standpoint, there are a few problems, with the constant crossing the line during over-the-shoulder shots being the most repetitive one. But perhaps that is a deliberate distraction revealing how off-balanced the world is in the story. And the world here sure isn’t what it’s supposed to be. This is a tale of an unhinged mind and it works on that level. While the acting isn’t great, it’s not from a lack of effort. Jimmy Scanlon does a good job revealing Chad’s arch from a happy man with a seemingly upbeat future ahead to an angry, desperate soul trying to sort out situations that simply cannot be happening. Scanlon and Michelle Romano have decent chemistry as the young couple, Ken Flott is appropriately ambiguous and creepy as Mr. Reed, while Stephanie Maheu and Sean Pierce are engagingly weird as the upstairs landlords. Overall, this is an entertaining thriller with a cool but not necessarily unexpected twist at the end. Recommended. – Craig Hamann

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Bloody-Disgusting.com reviews “The Darkness Within”

Bloody-Disgusting.com reviews “The Darkness Within”

Feb 23

By: Ted Brown

A young couple has just moved into a new apartment but soon things start to unravel with the appearance of a peeping tom whose voyeuristic escapades may very well tear them apart in Dom Portalla’s 2010 horror masterpiece “The Darkness Within”.

Looking back “The Darkness Within” is easily my favorite indie film of 2010, a low budget horror/thriller that would end up completely blowing me away. One of the best things about this film is the fact it was made on such a tiny budget, without flashy special effects and eye candy to distract their viewing audience; they were forced to write a solid and continuously impressive script like in the old days of filmmaking. With creative editing and a stellar script, Dom Portalla is able to create a very Hitchcock feeling movie that focuses on storytelling and character development of a small cast.

“The Darkness Within” is almost three movies in one, you get romance, comedy and terror all rolled up into a neat little package of pure enjoyment. The relationship between Chad (Jimmy Scanlon) and Ashley (Michelle Romano) is spot on with realism, which is very key when it comes to the success of the way this film plays out over time. Dom Portalla does an incredible job at recreating what it is like as a young couple moving into a small cramped space and the real life problems that arise. This makes their persona’s all the more believable and less like make believe characters created by a writer.

The same goes for the relationship between my two favorite characters in the film, the pot smoking, punk rock landlord Jordan Shelby (Stephanie Maheu) and her stoner friend sometimes roommate Dixon Rampart (Sean Pierce), the comedic relief from the despair created by “The Darkness Within”. I know these two, I grew up with them and hung out with them in high school and still see them time to time, no not the actors but their types these are my people. Videogames and smoke filled rooms, these characters are a very accurate portrayal of an entire generation of slackers and angst ridden self proclaimed revolutionists.

The downward spiral effect this movie produces as you sit back and watch Chad’s picture perfect life turn into a never ending journey to rock bottom always takes me back to the era of classic Hitchcock with a ending that only future fuels the constant vibe that you are watching a movie that one day will be considered a hidden gem and cult classic. Ending wise “The Darkness Within” will leave you speechless and for a few moments as the credits are rolling you will start to look back at certain scenes of the film in the back of your mind and slowly but surely everything will add up and you will realize that you have just experienced story telling at its finest.

Take a break from the mainstream Hollywood train and let this unique and fascinating indie film give you a ride worthy of admission, I highly recommend that “The Darkness Within” becomes a part of your movie collection.

Score: 8 / 10

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“The Darkness Within” Special Edition DVD’s are now on sale! Purchase a copy by clicking the link below!

“The Darkness Within” named among top films of 2010!

“The Darkness Within” named among top films of 2010!

Dec 29

Ted “Ritualistic” Brown of The Liberal Dead & James Cortez of The Blood Sprayer have included “The Darkness Within” among their favorite films of 2010! Check out what they have to say below.

“Drama, horror, suspense, and comedy all blended into a tight knit package that delivers in every way.”

-Ritualistic’s Top Five Flicks of 2010

“The Darkness Within is a great slice of psychological horror with more than a few passing nods to some of the genre’s greatest films (most notably, The Shining).”

-Cortez The Killer’s Year End List-O-Rama!

The Limited Special Edition DVD’s have also been reduced to $8.99, so don’t forget to pick up a copy!

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