A Lovely Side to Darkness (2007): Reviewed by Bryan Schuessler
A Lovely Side to Darkness (2007), written, directed, and edited by Juan Alcazar, is a 16mm independent horror film that ran around 15 min. and really even that was too long. This film was lacking interest for me on too many levels. The acting in it was average, but sometimes a little overdone.
The story centers on a father and his son who have no relationship with each other. They seem to hate each other. The father, Arnold (Steve Budd) has anger issues and seems like a real asshole. They both are coping with a loss. The son, Chris (John Kiernan) used to have a sister. We do not learn until the very end why Chris’ sister is no longer with them. Chris is having these nightmares/ hallucinations and thinks he is seeing things, maybe ghosts or phantoms. He never bothers to mention it to his father and when it happens while his friend is over, she gets freaked out and rushes off. Then his dad comes in and goes psycho on him and, well, I won’t ruin the ending. I guess with only 15 minutes to work with there is not much time to get too bored or hate a film too much.
A few of the apparition scenes looked like they were going for that Stir of Echoes (1999) feel and look, but never really achieved it.
I did not hate this film, but I felt the scenes of interaction with the father and son were not long enough to develop them as characters and the time they were on screen was kinda wasted. There was no gore. There was hardly any blood. Everyone knows that blood in horror is good, and if you are not going to have any blood, then you must create great suspense coupled with solid acting and plot. Just like in Psycho (1960) and Halloween (1978). There was not much suspense and the special effects and visual effects were quick and average. The editing was decent and the film, overall, had a professional look and feel to it. Nothing really stood out in the horror-short but the ending. I felt the ending was a surprise, one of the few, and I finished the film with hope that director Alcazar has great potential and can make a much better horror film in the future.
The filmmakers passed Film-making 101, but just not Horror 101!
www.alovelysidetodarkness.com
