In this age of crowd-funding sites and easily accessible technology, almost anyone can become a filmmaker if they put their mind to it; unfortunately, not everyone is a Scorsese or a Spielberg. When my daughter told me that she works with someone who had written and starred in a horror film, I just had to check it out, but I wasn't expecting greatness. However, while Dark Vision is unlikely to make anyone's Top 10 scary movie list, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined: the performances are more than adequate, the direction is competent, and there's a sense of fun to the whole thing that carries the viewer quite painlessly to the end.
The basic premise is fairly simple: paranormal webcast presenter Spencer Knights (Bernie Hodges) hopes to win a contest by filming at a gothic folly, supposedly haunted by the spirit of murderous plague doctor Baylock. The team enter the creepy catacombs located under the building, where Spencer unwittingly releases the plague doctor from purgatory. The caretaker of the folly, witchcraft scholar Clem (Judith Haley, who could be Britain's answer to Lin Shaye), steps in to help defeat the evil.
The first half of the film is fairly tongue-in-cheek -- a parody of TV shows like Most Haunted or Ghost Watch -- with the cast giving suitably broad performances, while the second part is played much straighter, the focus on the horror. This shift in tone is handled well by director Darren Flaxstone and is not as jarring as it sounds, however some plot elements do become lost in the mix leading to a degree of confusion: What is Dark Vision Hub (the organisation behind the contest) and what do they hope to gain by releasing the evil plague doctor? What is the significance of the tiny doll with bells attached to it? What are those floating orbs of light that lead production assistant Jo (Suzie Latham) to safety? Who is the spectral girl who communicates with the survivors via a phone app? While I don't need everything spelled out for me, I felt that these aspects of the script would have benefited from a little more exposition.
In terms of horror, the superb subterranean catacombs, with their many shadowy nooks and crannies, allow for plenty of suspense and some effective jump scares, but the violence is fairly restrained -- as a card-carrying gorehound, I had hoped for a little more in the way of blood and guts once the plague doctor got to work, but budget limitations no doubt prevented this. By way of recompense, there is a sex scene that delivers some nudity -- totally gratuitous, just as it should be, and cheaper to film than special make-up effects sequences!
The basic premise is fairly simple: paranormal webcast presenter Spencer Knights (Bernie Hodges) hopes to win a contest by filming at a gothic folly, supposedly haunted by the spirit of murderous plague doctor Baylock. The team enter the creepy catacombs located under the building, where Spencer unwittingly releases the plague doctor from purgatory. The caretaker of the folly, witchcraft scholar Clem (Judith Haley, who could be Britain's answer to Lin Shaye), steps in to help defeat the evil.
The first half of the film is fairly tongue-in-cheek -- a parody of TV shows like Most Haunted or Ghost Watch -- with the cast giving suitably broad performances, while the second part is played much straighter, the focus on the horror. This shift in tone is handled well by director Darren Flaxstone and is not as jarring as it sounds, however some plot elements do become lost in the mix leading to a degree of confusion: What is Dark Vision Hub (the organisation behind the contest) and what do they hope to gain by releasing the evil plague doctor? What is the significance of the tiny doll with bells attached to it? What are those floating orbs of light that lead production assistant Jo (Suzie Latham) to safety? Who is the spectral girl who communicates with the survivors via a phone app? While I don't need everything spelled out for me, I felt that these aspects of the script would have benefited from a little more exposition.
In terms of horror, the superb subterranean catacombs, with their many shadowy nooks and crannies, allow for plenty of suspense and some effective jump scares, but the violence is fairly restrained -- as a card-carrying gorehound, I had hoped for a little more in the way of blood and guts once the plague doctor got to work, but budget limitations no doubt prevented this. By way of recompense, there is a sex scene that delivers some nudity -- totally gratuitous, just as it should be, and cheaper to film than special make-up effects sequences!