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A bunch of teenagers go into a fun house and they are not all getting out alive, Jul 2 2007
In between screenings of movies at the After Dark Horrorfest (a.k.a "8 Films 2 Die 4"), when we were discussing the relative merit of the films there was a general consensus that if the distributors (Lionsgate and AfterDark Films) had their druthers, then it would be "Dark Ride" that would be their choice for the film to be selected as the best of the fest and get the general release. That honor when to "The Abandoned," which was something of a surprise to me (I vote for "Reincarnation" as the best of the bunch), but "Dark Ride" would have been a safe choice because studio executives would recognize it as your standard formula horror film circa 1980s (e.g., Tobe Hooper's "The Funhouse" came out in 1981). Of course the heart of the slasher film is to put a bunch of soon to be dead teenagers in a specific location, such as Camp Crystal Lake or a carnival fun house, but one of the hallmarks of the genre in the 1980s was that there was always some story about what happened once upon a time in that particular place and you have to pay attention to it because it not only tells you who the slasher is but also another part of the puzzle that gets revealed at the end as the "twist."
One thing to say for this 2006 horror film from director Craig Singer ("Kill Charlie"), is that he is working with much better cameras and film stock than Tobe Hooper was back in "Funhouse." "Dark Ride" certainly does not look like a low budget splatter flick from way back when, but it definitely embraces the genre. Jumping in the van for a road trip to Cleveland are Cathy (Jamie-Lynn Sigler of "The Sopranos), Bill (Patrick Renna from "The Sandlot" and last night's episode of "Boston Legal"), Steve (David Rogers from "The Legend of Butch and Sundance"), Jim (Alex Solowitz from "Never Been Kissed"), and Liz (Jennifer Tisdale from "The Hillside Strangler"). Along the way they pick up hitchhiker Jen (Andrea Bogart from "DarkWolf"), who gives a bit of a harder edge to tonight's dinner menu. As soon as you see Sigler's name and realize it is the only one your recognize you know who has the heroine's role in "Dark Ride" as the good girl (so forget about looking forward to her gruesome death like you did Paris Hilton in "House of Wax"). Jen is the bad girl and Liz the cute girl, while Bill is the nerd, Steve the stud, and Jim the mouthy guy, completing the Mouseketeer roll call that makes up tonight's smorgasbord.
On their way to New Orleans the crew are traveling near Ashbury Park New Jersey, where way back in the 1980s (which decade did you expect?) a deformed psycho named Jonah (Dave Warden), brutally murdered a pair of young girls who made the mistake of going on the Dark Ride. After all these years the Dark Ride is being reopened and given the choice of driving on the Big Easy or breaking into a fun house in the middle of the night, the group picks the latter. Of course what we know that they do not is that Jonah has just escaped from the mental institution that has held him since he was convicted and now that he is free it is safe to say that he is not going to New Orleans either and that most of these kids are going to end up dead with their blood and guts all over the place.
Actually, "Dark Ride" is not particularly gory, because half of the fun here is the anticipation as Jonah goes after each next target. Then there is also the dark humor that runs throughout the film, which is not really all that great, but it is not laughably bad, always a plus in this genre. If this movie had been released twenty years ago it would have been one of the slickest splatter flicks around, but that probably means those of us who cut our teeth on the original version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and flicks like "I Spit on Your Grave" and "Friday the 13th" are going to be the ones to round up on "Dark Ride" while those weaned on the recent remake of "TCM" and films like "Hostel" and the "Saw" trilogy will decide to round down. All I ask you to bear in mind when you get to the end and Sigler's Cathy does the right thing at the exact right place at the exact right time, that this bit of audacity is par for the course in those 1980s splatter flicks that Singer is emulating here. Just remember that in such films what happens at the end is not the twist: it is the punch line. Overall, I ranked this old school slasher flick fifth out of the eight film.
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