I don’t know if this is sad or funny, but this movie was far more fun than most of the dreck big-budget movie studios put out.
Make no mistake, Dark Rising isn’t a good movie in terms of plot and story by any stretch, but the premise is fun, the dialogue funny, and everyone involved has a wonderful awareness of the silliness of the film. Plus it has a hot woman wielding a battleaxe, lesbians making out, and boobs. What’s there not to like?
Jason Parks wants nothing more than to reunite with his ex-fiancé, Jasmine, so he and his friend Ricky go along with Jasmine and her friends Marlene and Renee on a camping trip. Little does he know that Jasmine and Marlene are now a lesbian couple, or that Renee wants to hold a séance to contact a missing girl. After some awkward moments between Jason and Jasmine and a rather nice lesbian make-out scene, Renee accidentally summons a demon into our world. Blood flies and Jason almost gets skewered only to be saved by a battleaxe-wielding warrior woman who looks like she stepped out of a Boris Vallejo painting.
What makes this work is that nobody involved took this seriously. The writer, director, and actors all knew that they were making a low-budget comic horror movie, and they have fun with it. There’s a definite Bruce Campbell feel to this movie, especially in the acting of Landy Cannon as Jason, and it makes for great camp.
While all the actors are great in this, I have to single out Jason Reso as Ricky. Reso is better known as the wrestler Christian, of Edge and Christian fame, and he’s great. Wrestlers traditionally don’t make good actors, but Reso to me is right up there with Rowdy Roddy Piper in terms of comedic timing. Every scene he was in cracked me up, and he really made the movie for me. I hope that this is the start of a film career for Reso, because I’d like to see him in more.
I should also mention the role of the music in this movie. The filmmakers use the music to really highlight the comedy. There are moments when Scooby-Dooesque scores play over scenes, making certain moments really funny. I also really enjoyed the sappy, puppy-love music that pretty much served as Jason’s theme. It makes him come off as a moon-eyed, lovestruck teenage girl, which is really funny in contrast to the strong, active women. In fact, one of the themes of the movie is that the women act more like men than the men, and it’s played for great comic effect.
The women also deserve special mention because not only are they very attractive, but they’re also very capable comic actresses. Julia Schneider was in particular very funny as Renee, and Birgitte Kingsley was just plain gorgeous. My only complaint about the movie is that Kingsley didn’t do a full-frontal nude scene, which I know sounds crass, but topless scenes are the point of exploitation movies. At least that’s my defense anyway.
The movie was presented in fullscreen 4:3 aspect ratio with the audio in English Dolby Digital. The production quality isn’t top-notch by any means considering their budget, but there were no problems with either the audio or video.
Commentary with Director and Cast – This was actually fun to listen to. Cymek, Kingsley, Reso, and Cannon obviously had a great time making the movie and they play around a lot during the commentary. I wish more commentary tracks would be like this and actually be entertaining instead of a dull recitation of what key grip did what in some scene.
Wrestling Match Between Christian Cage and Rhino(14:45) – Steel cage barbed wire match! I haven’t watched wrestling in a while, so this was pretty fun, especially considering Cage and Rhino pull out all the stops including the obligatory steel chair. Neat little extra.
Behind-the-Scenes Featurette (6:25) – A nice, brief featurette with some funny interviews with the cast. Nothing special, but again it was more fun than most behind-the-scenes extra features.
Deleted Scenes – There are five deleted scenes here and they do actually help fill in some of the plot holes. They were taken out because they slowed down the pacing, and I can see why. Still, if you’re interested in some of the plot points left behind (although I’m really not sure why considering you don’t watch this type of movie for the whip-smart story) they’re worth a watch.
Slideshow – Definitely the weakest of the extra features here, but to be fair I think that of every slideshow extra.
This is not a great movie by any means, which is why I’m not going to rate it too high, but it was definitely fun, and I had a good time watching it, which is more than I can say for some movies. I really enjoyed the sense of play everyone brought to the movie and the fact that they didn’t take it too seriously. They knew the kind of movie they were making and set out to make it the best that they could, which I can respect. And it has two of my most favorite things in the world: axes and boobs. Recommended for fans of fun bad movies.
Defiant Empire presents Dark Rising. Directed by Andrew Cymek. Starring Landy Cannon, Jay Reso, Brigitte Kingsley, Julia Schneider, Vanessa James, and Haley Shannon. Written by Andrew Cymek. Running time: 93 minutes. Rated NR. Released on DVD: August 11, 2009. Available at Amazon.
