Living Dark

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Ben W Jun 21 I know that this movie is not perfect, far from it, but omg I love this movie so much, and not even in an “it’s so bad it’s good” way. I don’t know if I’m going crazy or something, but I actually cared about the characters here, and the movie felt like it was really putting its heart into itself. It does look like it was filmed in the 90s, and not in 2013, but that doesn’t take away from it for me. It’s based off a Creepypasta, which makes most people write it off before they see it (and for good reason, most Creepypasta movies are dogwater), but I ended up enjoying this more than I thought. Give it a shot, I say. See more 06/06/2020 It was slow going in the beginning. Pretty boring especially when they were making the hole wider. It picked up speed and got a little more interesting during the middle to end of the movie. This movie is a knock off of the movie The Descent. Definitely would not pay to see this. See more 05/28/2020 Although the cinematography of this film isn't polished, and the acting is mostly average, this spooky story--of a couple good ol' boy brothers haphazardly breaching a dark, subterranean inner sanctum, and becoming the target of ghoulish creatures--makes for some fun entertainment. There's a mix of humor and just enough unnerving or jumpy moments to make it a fun experience. It's not a hardcore horror movie by any stretch, but sometimes I enjoy just a good old-fashioned scare movie that doesn't have all the blood and guts that seems to be so common nowadays. In addition, for anyone (like me) who gets squeamish being in tight spaces, some scenes in this movie might bring on a case of the heebie jeebies. In all fairness, the acting of the two lead characters is pretty darn good, and on par with what you would find in just about any of today's TV series--and their performances are mainly what holds the movie together. That's a good thing, since I believe that one or both of them appear in every single scene. Both men have appeared in other TV shows and/or movies, and I just saw where one of the guys (Chris Cleveland) won a 2014 "Best Actor Award" for this particular movie at Festival de Cinema de Terror de Molins de Rei Barcelona, Spain. (Yeah, I know, it's not an Oscar--but, hey, it's still one more acting award than I've ever won.) See more 05/17/2020 Straight up garbage. Don't get me wrong.. I knew going into this that it wasn't even close to promising. If the year it was released was changed to 1993, you wouldn't have known differently. Terrible acting, dumb af story, and people running around in black tights in the dark as monsters? Baahaha! Only thing it had going for itself was a couple laughs because it was so embarrassingly stupid. If you want to feel transported back to a time in the early 90's where you're watching a feature on USA's "Up All Night" minus the beautiful voice of Gilbert Gottfried, then this is for you. Just when I think I've seen the worst movie in my life, clowns like these guys prove me wrong. Oh and a shout out to Amazon Prime for the nice recommendation! See more Jesse O 08/24/2018 I feel like it should be obvious, given the fact that I mentioned that I'm not the outdoorsy type in my review of The Package almost two weeks ago, that I'm also not the type to go exploring caves or abandoned mines either. More the former than the latter, considering that, in some caves, you have to go through some really tight passageways in order to get where you're wanting to go. Yea, sorry guys, that's just not me. I'd immediately panic. Plus, having seen movies like The Descent, I know what's REALLY up in these caves. Seriously though, it's obviously not for me. Also know that I'm not trying to pass judgment on those who find enjoyment in this, if it makes you happy, then, by all means, have at it. I'm not trying to get in the way of someone trying to have a fun time. Another thing I wanna talk about before getting into the review of this movie is the original internet story this is based on, with obvious changes. The story of Ted the Caver, told through a series of blog entries on this Angelfire page, is one of the first examples of a 'creepypasta', an internet horror story for those uninitiated. The first blog was written on December of the year 2000 and ended in May of 2001. Creepypastas do nothing for me, if I wanna watch or read something scary, I like it to be based on something real. I'm not saying these creepypastas are bad, just that they're not my go-to for horror entertainment. Having said that, creepypastas, relatively speaking, are more of a recent thing. At least its popularity is, starting around 2010. That's almost a decade ago but, again, the Ted the Caver story started to be published in 2000, 10 years prior to the beginning of its popularity. So to say that Ted the Caver was ahead of its time is an understatement. Of course, that story is probably tame considering to what you see these days from creepypastas, but you can't deny how 'revolutionary' it was for that genre. Having said that, upon starting this movie, I wasn't really expecting much. The movie just looked cheaply made and it just didn't seem like it would amount to much. Color me surprised to find out that, in fact, this movie, while certainly no good, is better than I could have anticipated. As I mentioned, this is not good, and it's not some sort Prime Video hidden gem like Crush the Skull was, but this was a perfectly decent movie. Having said that, there still are some painfully bad moments near the climax that I'll get to eventually. The film tells the story of Ted, duh, and his brother Brad exploring this cave that Ted literally tripped upon after their father's death. Brad and Ted's relationship is a little tense after Brad left to go to college and left Brad to take care of their dad and uncle Charlie, who's mentally handicapped. On top of that, Brad married Tina, who was Ted's ex. So, yea, there's a bunch of family drama here. You know, for a movie that takes a while before it really gets going, like 45 minutes or so, this really isn't that boring. Because, again, the first half of the film is just Brad and Ted finding this virgin passageway, trying to open it up for Ted to go through (since Brad is claustrophobic) to see what's on the other side of this tight passageway. You'd think that all of this would not be particularly exciting and, somehow, again, it's not as boring as you'd think. I think part of it is the fact that you're sort of with Brad and Ted and the excitement of finding out what's beyond this passageway. At the same time, they do a solid job at exploring the dynamics between both brothers. It all comes to a head much later, of course, but there's some tension slowly building between the two as Ted still holds a grudge over what happened. One of the big problems, however, that I had with the film is that there's like six or seven times when something really spooks them and they're like 'ok, we're not coming back here' only to, inevitably, go back there again. This is effective like, say, maybe once or even twice, but they rely on this way too much for it to continue to work every fucking time. Because, at the same time, it makes you think that whatever they get, they deserve. Though, at least, in Ted's case, I understand the need to find out what's beyond. He's at this point where he's lost everything. His father just died, he lost his girlfriend/fiancee to his brother and, to a certain extent, he felt like he lost a brother. He's got nothing to live for, so I can sort of see how he would keep pushing onward even when faced with danger. But it's still a tad stupid seeing them continually go 'ok, we're not going back' only to end up back there by the next scene. Brad and Ted get this gas station employee, who's crazy for exploring caves, to go with them in order to get more help. Ted concusses himself on this rock and Joe, the gas station employee, goes ahead to explore what's past the passageway. When he comes back, though, he's obviously spooked and immediately climbs out of the hole the cave is located in and drives away. He doesn't tell Ted or Brad anything about what he saw. Naturally, of course, this doesn't drive them away, this makes Ted double down on his efforts. Long story short, Ted makes it past the passageway and continues to explore deeper into this cave. He, eventually, comes to this location considerably deeper within, where he starts feeling strange, as if there's something there. There's this giant meatball-shaped rock there and, after his flashlight is fucked and he turns on a glow stick, he notices that the meatball-shaped rock has moved and it was covering up another passageway that went down deeper into the cave. Ted panics and immediately escapes, rushing to get out of the tight passageway to escape with his brother. This, to me, is probably the best part of the entire film, because they do so much with so little. You don't see anything whatsoever, it's just Ted's own paranoia, but they make it so chaotic and tense that it worked. Ted's paranoia is justified, however, as when they get out of the hole and attempt to cut they rope that's hooked to this tree, something else pulls on it. They cut it just in time, but the hole is left exposed. This will come back to bite them in the ass. Eventually they decide to go back and board up the hole for no one else to find as a family went missing near the area where the hole is at. Long story short, Brad and Ted, after a fight, decide to go back to board up the hole. They go to Ted's house to stock up. Then they find out, through Charlie's poor writing (since he's mentally challenged) that he went to Floyd's Tomb, where the cave is located. This is where the really bad parts of the movie start. Ted and Brad immediately start yelling after Charlie as if he was gonna be in the immediate area of the house when Charlie went to the house BEFORE they got there. Anyway, they come back to the cave and find that these monsters (yes, there are monsters) somehow got Charlie through the very tight passageway. Now, Charlie himself isn't exactly fat, but he's certainly very chubby. Ted, and later Brad, had immense trouble getting through the passageway and they're relatively fit. How in the FUCK do you expect me to believe that Charlie fit through that passageway??? Brad scraped his back trying to get through and Charlie came through it unscathed? Come on now! Strains credulity a little bit. But, whatever, these creatures, being underground for so long, are obviously sensitive to light. I think Brad shines a flashlight on one of them and it's obviously a person wearing a costume, but they shine it towards the head and it just looked like a guy painted black wearing a bald cap. They never show too much of the monsters and that's probably the way it should have been done, but I just picked up on that and it was a little...silly. Another problem is the fact that Brad and Ted just won't shut the fuck up for one fucking second. They're all screaming at the top of their longs for Charlie or each other or just because they're in pain. It gets really fucking annoying after two minutes. This is when the acting is, by far, the weakest. Because, by this point, the acting is perfectly watchable. There's no Academy Award winners here, but they're all doing what they need to do and they're doing it adequately. This third act, when they're trying to save Charlie from the monsters sort of negates all of that for a little while. There's also some unintentionally funny moments where both Brad and Ted take these incredibly small and dainty steps while in the cave. It just looks so stupid for these two to walk this way, particularly when time is of the essence in order to save their uncle. Maybe it was difficult for them to move inside the cave or whatever, but it still looks fucking ridiculous. Long story short, though, the film uses this cave and its mysteries behind to tell a story of forgiveness, Ted finally letting go of what Brad did to him and moving on and doing what it takes to save him so he can go to his pregnant wife. I liked that part of it and, again, surprisingly, the movie does have some decent amount of character development. It's not like it's great or really all that unique to this movie, but I appreciated it regardless. At the very least the movie tried to make you care about its characters. The problem is what rating do I give this movie? Because, again, I felt it was a decent 2.5 star movie. But the climax really had some cringeworthy moments that I can't overlook. Yes, they were in the minority, but they were incredibly bad for those short moments. So I feel like 2 stars is appropriate. This is a better movie than 2 stars but, again, I can't overlook how bad some of the third act actually was. Having said that, this still genuinely surprised me. Decent acting and character development in addition to some tense moments really make this movie perfectly watchable, but nothing more than that. Can't recommend it and I'm sure that most people will get more from the original story, but this is not bad at all. See more Courtney K @c0urtn3y 12/30/2017 huh; you can tell the budget for this movie was less than large, but honestly -- it was scary. not the kind of scary people are used to now days, but if you're any bit claustrophobic or afraid of the dark, this is not a bad film. not bad at all. See more Read all reviews

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