begob A grieving couple move to a remote house after the death of their daughter, but they find a deadly spirit in their new home, and the locals aren't helpful ...The opening is grim, then the daughter dies and it's not clear if it was suicide. She's maybe 7 years old, and they discover her in bed with her wrists all bloody. Ugh. Anyway, I was reading this as a metaphor for the horrible inevitability of suicide, but it got more literal and ended up fairly spooky.The direction/editing is plain, with a soundtrack of plinky-piano/twangly-harp, just right for TV melodrama. Lots of poor attempts at jump-scares, especially the back-fitting of a figure that wasn't there the last time you looked, the figure moving across the background. The tumbling down the stairs one worked, both times.Greatest weakness is the script, because it doesn't combine things into each scene, and there are too many characters for such an intimate story. Plus the dialogue is weak, leaving lots of meaning on the table.Overall, a cheesy production, but the theme is strong and sort of breaks through in the end.

BoulevardPark Acting was weak, but in a horror flick, I can live with that if the story is good. It wasn't. The initial event was an clumsy and obvious ploy to exploit most people's adoration of kids. OK, fine. Fast forward to the "place in the country" where they will recover emotionally. I like the revelation of the ghosts. OK, cool--this will be a supernatural kinda horror story, with rotting things partly in our world partly in...where ever. Then the action starts pulling like a three headed dog in a flurry of cats and birds--Is there an evil force trying to attack them directly? Is there an evil force trying to attack them INdirectly--make people do awful things they wouldn't really do? Oh, wait, no, maybe the whole REGION is some kind of psychic echo chamber where ambient discord can reverberate into murder? OK, hold on--maybe it's really just one little mentally tangled "Delbert"-style redneck boy who misses his Mommy and is on some kind of spree like a K-Tel Norman Bates knock off? Oh, yeah--extra points off: the only Black character seems to be the grandson of an "Our Gang" pullman porter. The actor plays it as straight as he can given the crummy dialogue, but the fact is, his purpose is "Y'all done betta get outa heah, Boss!" At least they wrote him smart enough to GTF outta there. The bit with the little girl being silenced and pulled away was definitely creepy, as was the chick in the shower. Those were just two of quite a few really delicious tidbits in this movie. The problem is that they are combined in disharmonious ways, like a bite of steak, a bite of chocolate and a bite of a Gummi bear. Each is great on it's own, but mixed up? Bleah! Such potential. Wasted.

Andy Van Scoyoc Two things about this movie… Number 1: It does NOT deserve all the extreme praise it is getting. Nothing about this movie was cringe-worthy or made me jump. If anyone truly found this movie "jump-worthy" they need to get out more.Number 2: It does NOT deserve the bashings it is getting either. Personal attacks on the lead actress Cheri Christian are unwarranted and while it lacked in many areas, the ghosts at times were very cool--especially the one on the floor.Okay. I am going to do it. I said I was not going to write an IMDb review of this movie (but rather was just going to review it for my magazine, Twisted Dreams) but I lied. Here is my review.I have been waiting for three years to see this movie. I was one of the celebrity guests at the Halloween Horror Picture Show three years ago in Tampa and Dark Remains was fresh on the market and one of the movies playing. I saw the cover and was hooked.Unfortunately, I was not able to stay and watch the movie but contacted the production company after the show and asked how I could find it.Long story short, I just found it for rent a few nights ago at the local Hollywood Video. I snatched it up and eagerly watched. I tried to keep an open mind, realizing that this movie is Indie and that if I got too excited, I might be let down.While I was not impressed, I was not let down either really.Allow me to explain. Julie and Allen lose their daughter to a vicious murder. It appears that Allen thought he locked the door before bed, and when Julie got up during the night to check, it was unlocked. Okay so their daughter Emma is dead.They move to the country to a beautiful log cabin and as others have said, have a host of Deliverance type neighbors to choose from--from the scum that got them the home, to the creep down the way who lives in a remarkably nice home to have the IQ of a turnip. Not a personal attack…just stating that the effect to make him seem dim-witted wasn't bad.Then the ghosts start appearing.This is where I have mixed emotions. I am an Indie horror author myself and tend to cut other Indies (no matter what Indie path they follow) some slack. However, I do have a serious issue with many movies nowadays due to the fact that most plots are either non-existent or they are not developed. Dark Remains falls into the latter category. What could have been a good plot was simply not developed well enough.I was confused from the first shots of the movie. They were run together and made for a very confusing foundation. I had to wait until the end of the movie to figure out, "oh…that is what that scene was of!" I agree with some of the comments that the acting was flat and that there were just too many ghosts.Also the prison really was not warranted in the movie. In the special features though, it was really interesting hearing about the ghost Big Red that haunts it, and so forth. However, for the movie, it simply was useless.Though the scenery was really beautiful and if I bought a house like that cabin, the ghosts would have found themselves seriously evicted no matter how many priests I had to call, I think that the plot line needed a LOT more development rather than just rushing to the end of the movie and climaxing with, "oh and by the way…here is why there are so many ghosts." In layman's terms…it took too long to get to the real story. The movie could have been much shorter and filled in with a better story development or at least some filler that wasn't so boring…yes I said it…boring to watch.Could have been fabulous and wasn't honestly bad. Old school definitely which is a nice change…but simply took too long to get from point A to point B.

jdollak I'm not at all picky about horror movies, and I'm willing to watch pretty much any of them. That doesn't mean that I'm willing to re-watch many of them, or that I won't have criticism for them. This movie is creepy, and is very well done. In fact, I think this movie would make an excellent double-bill with Session 9.I should specify, before I get to my comments, that I watched this alone. I started watching it before going to bed, and got about 15 minutes in before I realized that it was too effective, so I saved the rest of it for the morning. Even while watching it in broad daylight, it was still creepy. However, I can't vouch for how effective it would be when watching in a larger group.After the death of their daughter, a couple move to a remote cabin as a means of trying to come to terms with this death. Let me make note of this death - this is one of the rare movies that doesn't shy away from the death of a child. This is much more important, as it both sets the tone, as well as explains much of the acting that permeates the movie.The couple is not doing well. The wife has distanced herself from the relationship, and the husband is doing what he can to try to bring her back. While some of the comments have complained about their acting - one specified that they act more like a father and daughter than husband and wife, and that's legitimate. He's trying to give her more direction. It's a role that men sometimes take on.There are a variety of scares in the film, and most are fairly non-violent, though grotesque in some ways. The story itself feels very straightforward for most of the film, and takes an odd turn near the end. While the turn is not absurd, it is certainly not what you expected from the way things had been progressing.Moody, atmospheric, and very well done for something that appears to have been shot on video.