Dark Chronicles (2019, dir:
Christopher M. Carter, Jessica Morgan, Dustin Rieffer; script:
Christopher M. Carter, Jessica Morgan, Dustin Rieffer; cast:
Jessica Morgan, Katy Mahard, Daniela Santi, Jim Cirner, Joe
Heck, Aeric Azana, Brittny Isabell, Avalon Kerr, Adam Mendez,
Jr.)
The
IMDB says that
Dark Chronicles (2019) was
originally a "TV Mini-Series" comprising four episodes. Those
episodes have been combined into a horror anthology film, with the
addition of a horror host for a wraparound plus inserts between
each tale.
Dark Chronicles runs a bit over 84
minutes, including the wraparound, so the episodes aren't very
long. And judging by its low-budget production values, this looks
like a web series rather than anything made for TV.
"Possession" (12
minutes) is a standard demonic possession story. It only has a
cast of two. A man tries to exorcise a woman. Nothing new here,
apart from a "surprise twist" ending that didn't surprise me, and
wasn't very interesting.
"Relic" (20 minutes)
was the only tale I kinda liked. Three young people visit
an antique store reputed to sell weird items.
The store looks like
every antique store, curio shop, occult bookstore, and fortune
teller's den in every horror film ever made. It's located in a
seedy part of town. Shabby on the outside. Quiet, dimly lit, and
cluttered with oddities on the inside. Pagan masks, burning
candles, a devil's mirror, skeleton figurines, and an ancient,
handwritten occult book are among the store's inventory.
The store owner is a pretty young woman who tries to look creepy by
wearing a veil. She also talks in the stiff, formal fashion of
people knowledgeable about the occult. She tricks the young
visitors into summoning a dead spirit, who follows them home and
butchers them in the style of Michael Myers. Hey, he might be a
spirit, but he still enjoys his splatter and gore.
Nothing terribly original about "Relic," but I liked the store's
spooky atmosphere, and the film was well paced.
"What Hides Within" (13 minutes) is the usual zombie apocalypse.
Four people barricaded in a house. Inside, the walls are covered
with plastic sheets. (Why? Because it looks cool?) One man becomes
a zombie and kills two others, eating their flesh. The final
survivor escapes, but meets an unexpected fate in a surprise twist
ending. This time, I was surprised. But the ending was nihilistic
and unpleasant.
Actually, I'm not sure if the flesh eaters are zombies. Zombies are
dead, but these flesh eaters might be alive yet driven insane by a
virus. They run rather than shamble, they're feral, they eat
flesh, and they can be killed. Zombies? Whatever. They are what
they are.
"The Conductor" (29
minutes) is the longest and dullest tale. Christopher M. Carter's
script is heavily padded. His characters keep repeating their
points. The dialog could have been cut in half without losing
anything. Carter's direction is also poor. His actors speak too
slowly, savoring their (repetitive) evil lines. Stanley Kubrick
and David Lynch also linger
on moments, but Carter lingers on nothing very interesting.
Carter's story has many twists, but no original elements. Three
people in a bar on a rainy night. They have secrets. Past crimes.
There's sadistic violence and the supernatural.
Jessica Morgan has a thing for broken bones sticking out of arms.
She did the make-up effects for "The Conductor" and "Possession,"
and both films have people who break their arms so the bone sticks
out. (Dustin Rieffer wrote and directed "Possession," so Morgan is
the common element on both films.) She also directed and co-wrote
"What Hides Within," in which a woman's arm is sawed off. A Jill
of all trades, Morgan also stars in "The Conductor," but she's
better at breaking and sawing off arms than at acting.
Dark Chronicles's technical
aspects are decent enough. The acting and writing ranges from
acceptable to bad. "Relic" (also written and directed by Carter)
is its only entertaining tale. The wraparound (a simple host who
introduce the stories) is also well done.
Even hardcore horror fans might want to ignore
Dark Chronicles. For horror
anthology completists only.
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