A troubled young woman wakes up one day as a different person, someone being stalked by terrifying creatures. But what is the dream and what is reality?
There seemed to be a lot of mixed feelings about Dark Corners out there and while I was actually looking forward to seeing this flick and did my best to stay neutral, in the end I have to side with those that didn't respond too well to it. The main problem with this film was that it felt like it just kept repeating itself all the way through, and even though a lot of things did happen, it always seemed slow and never really took off. From the little that I had heard about this movie, it was gonna deal with the psychological and while I do love that stuff in horror films, Dark Corners pretty much ended up being a movie that wanted to be smart but didn't have the smarts to pull it off.
Thora Birch stars as blonde Karen and brunette Susan (yes, the hair colors makes us be able to separate the two characters). Karen is suffering from nightmares while having problems getting pregnant with her husband. In those nightmares she becomes Susan, the dark haired one, and those nightmares of course has that dark look and feel to them as well. Now, I did really like how things looked in the alternate dark reality where Susan is being stalked by monsters and a serial killer called the Night Stalker. There's a bathroom where some scenes are set and that whole enviroment looks ace, although it's not nearly enough to save this flick from falling flat.
 
A collegue at work recommend blonde Karen to go see her shrink and as soon as she does, the movie becomes too obvious and predictable, and that pretty much leaves you spending the rest of the course of the film knowing what's gonna come and how it's all gonna end. Personally, I've seen way too many movies to agree with those saying that the film is indeed very original and inventive, that's not the case at all. Now, Karen's nightmares becomes more and more frequent, she pretty much dreams all the time and the movie keeps flicking back and forth between Karen and Susan, and every time it does, we are pretty much introduced to the same type of scenes we've seen before. It really goes nowhere but instead just keeps repeating itself and that makes it a very hard, not to mention uninteresting, film to watch.
Thora Birch is not great but that doesn't mean that she's doing a bad job either, I believe she's just in the wrong type of film and it doesn't suit her too well. The very twists and turns are really nothing to talk about because they are pretty much non-existant, and when they are existant they're also never really satisfying enough. There are a whole heap of scenes that are supposed to deliver suspense, but they never really do and inbetween those scenes, we're just treated to tiring dialogue that doesn't have too much to offer. Personally, I think that the hair colors that separates Karen and Susan was a big mistake because it makes it 110 percent obvious to see when Karen is dreaming and not dreaming. It's too clear and I wish they would've thrown in some creepy confusion in the movie but unfortunately that didn't happen.
On the horror front, the only real thing Dark Corners has to offer is some cool horror imagery but it's just a minor positive thing floating in a sea of negativity. It's not all bad, but really good it is not.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE:
MOVIE YEAR: 2006
DIRECTOR: Ray Gower
WRITING CREDITS: Ray Gower
GENRE: Psychological Thriller
CAST: Thora Birch, Toby Stephens, Christien Anholt
COUNTRY: UK, USA
RUNTIME: 95 min
RATING: 3/10
Dark Corners Website/IMDB Click here
Dark Corners Trailer Click here
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