Dark Circles (2013) Reviews

• Better entry into the 'After Dark Originals' library.

  waqarr402013-09-17

  Starring an unknown cast, 'Dark Circles' treads familiar grounds, with a family moving away to the rural side of the USA in order to escape the hectic life in the city. From it's chilling 5 minute opening up to its eventual climax, 'Dark Circles' presents itself as a good start to this years run of 'After Dark Originals'. With the aforementioned opening 5 minutes effectively setting the tone for what's to come, I got the feeling that this could very well be a good horror movie. With a movie like this, and a plot that has been used countless upon countless times it's quite hard to be original and I think the director (first time feature director Paul Soter) decided to sidestep that by just trying to give us as many creepy moments as possible. For the largest part he succeeds by giving us a rundown of the common and not so common tactics to scare us. Loud sounds, a point of view camera, shapes in the distance drawing near, and a very ominous soundtrack consisting of the same 4 tone piano medley all work together to give us the unsettling vibe that is so highly sought after in these types of movies. What makes a movie great though, is its story.dark-circles-3 And while it sets out promising, with the main leads openly discussing the disturbing things they are witnessing, ultimately it degrades itself by falling back into the old habits of horror. They start to distrust one another (which only serves as a cheap setup to give us some more scary scenes) and the plot moves from one angle to the complete opposite without any clear given reason as to why. It didn't manage to make me dislike the movie all together, but it took away from the experience I was having up until 50 minutes into its 86 minute total. The final resolve made me think of 'High Tension' a French horror movie which had an ending that totally ruined all that came before it. While 'Dark Circles' doesn't tread the same grounds as that one, nor did it have as much impact as 'High Tension' had, its ending makes you wonder about the logic that's being used here. Can a ghost be killed by a knife? Will it come back? What about the people who die over the course of the movie? and what about the marriage that was under huge pressure up until 2 minutes before the end of the movie? Ultimately, 'Dark Circles' is one of those movies that entertains, but doesn't manage to rear its head amongst the better horror movies. Being a virgin in this genre could benefit your experience as a viewer, but as a seasoned vet it's a case of been there, done that. To summarize: some genuinely creepy scenes, an effective soundtrack, decent acting and a very well shot movie make this one of the better entries into the 'After Dark Originals' library. But that doesn't mean it's great.

• This is pretty decent.

  mariasquare2013-05-25

  To be honest, I actually thought this movie would be one of those crappy ones. You know how the movie posters are these days. They don't portray a single bit from the movie. Just total crap. But anyway, the poster for this movie didn't say much but still I was willing to sacrifice my time and my eyesight to watch it. Just because. Like I said, it's actually pretty decent. The plot is there. You can connect the dots. The actor did a pretty good job. They are some scary bits but not over the top. The scary bits are quite predictable to be honest. But still I watched it with a blanket covering half of my face. There are some funny bits as well with the babysitter. Halfway watching you might be confused. There might be tons of questions in your head. Like for example, whether the ghost is actually a ghost? What's her story? Who buys a house in the middle of nowhere? (Although every horror movie starts with the purchase of a house in the middle of nowhere) Why can't you just move out if you're feeling depressed being in that house? Why isn't anyone going to work? But towards the end, some of your questions will be answered. All in all, this movie has the screams, blood, ghost, haunted house and craziness. Last time I checked, all of those are the essence of a horror movie. If you want to watch it, you won't be extremely disappointed. If you don't want to watch it, you're not missing anything.

• An intermediate movie

  lion_month2013-08-11

  I read some reviews here after watching the movie. I have watched a lot of horror movies since I am a big fan of the genre. To me, this movie was not scary except last minutes but it might be very interesting for someone else and the reason is that the acceptance of a horror movie is concerned with audiences in different way. Some people enjoy horror movies based on ghosts and haunting houses, some others may prefer slasher ones and some ones like all sub-genres of horror movies. This movie is about a newly purchased house by a couple with their new born baby who move there and have insomnia. Very soon some strange things happen and a chilling lady is seen by them. In my opinion, the film was directed not bad but the written story was not enough good. Paul Soter wrote the story and directed the film as well. I previously saw his other written and directed movie,"Watching the Detective (2007)" and I think that one was a better work as a comedy-romantic movie but this movie lacks very effective shocking elements. First of all that ghost- form lady was not terrible and creepy. Second, killing of the ghost- form lady was funny if you think she was just a homeless woman looking for a baby or revenge not a ghost! Third, 3 persons (Nancy, Micheal, and the creepy lady) were killed in that house at the end and the couple (Alex and Penny) were sitting in an ambulance after the arrival of rescue forces but who the hell didn't suspect to them as murderer(s)?! Apart of these problems, the movie had relatively good filming and acting. My rating to this film was 5 out of 10. Watching this movie is up to you I don't recommend you to see or not to see it but of course not worth for second time!

• Boring and highly unoriginal

  alain-kapel52013-06-01

  First of all, I have to say I didn't expect much from Dark Circles. The poster looked OK, but you learn to be cautious with new horror films because under the cover often lies another boring and pretentious film with cheap scaring techniques and a predictable, derivative plot, and that's exactly the case here. Johnathon Schaech and Pell James were good enough in their roles, even sympathetic, and the film had some nice ideas and scenes, like the one when Johnathon's character is dreaming. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie was just plain bad. As I mentioned, you have a totally unoriginal story which tries to be a lot of things at once, and it never succeeds at being even remotely interesting. Then you have the same old jump scares which anyone can easily predict. The villain isn't scary at all, and looks like a woman with a bit of ugly make-up on (oh wait, that's what it actually is). Atmosphere was solid until the villain started showing up in brief glimpses, and that's when most of you will realize you will be wasting your time with this movie. I'd say skip it, life is just too short.

• what's happening here

  pepestealth2013-08-05

  first of I need to tip my hat to the director of the movie, for wanting and actually putting that many styles into one movie. Not to mention having done that in a short period and a small budget I imagine. But....here's my 2 cents on the movie, it starts of slow, first half hour is kind of dragging but then it's starts to pick up pace... parents of a newborn get insomniac, cause of a building site next to their newly found piece of paradise and a baby who deprives them from their well-deserved sleep... I consider myself a movie-aficionado and horror has a special place in my heart, go check out my list if you are in doubt. Anyways, about the movie, first of I found the actors to play their parts very well, both husband and wife and the psycho/ghost or whatever she was...so there's that. But why even after all the madness of sleep deprivation would you go to a local supermarket and hire an unknown girl on the spot to babysit. Mind you this is your newborn baby ? Seems kind of far-fetched but hey, I can live with that...Then you wake up missing an entire day and your baby has been completely neglected, unchanged diaper and all that. Then why don't you go after the baby sitter or just plain go back to the place of her employment and ask about what the hell has happened ? Still I can live with that, but then this women/ghost appears in your random pictures and your dreams/hallucinations and still you want to stay in that same house,..... And why the hell don't these people as a couple talk about the things happening to them, their dreams, their premonitions, their fears, like a healthy and young couple would do ? OK, and then we have a body in the house for a couple of days and no one even smells but a whiff a something decaying. The ghost/psycho disappears from under a bed like David Copperfield....? She also manages to enter a locked house enter a kitchen cabinet unseen to appear out of it and then disappear into thin air.... This woman ah....never mind. So many mistakes when it really had me going in the beginning, and then it seemed to me like the director changed his mind and went from supernatural/ghostly apparition to psycho/lunatic crazy woman...the build up was really slow and well executed and the end was a mere disappointment of plot holes... It's worth a watch, but a 6.6 rating, no way