Pretty Good

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Well, I'll say one thing for this film... with all it's weird gory intermissions and random acts of violence, it certainly disturbed me. That's about all it has going for it though, as the story is all over the map. It's one of those movies which is far less clever than it thinks it is... If you get confused by the goings-on, don't worry... My guess is even the writer couldn't explain this hodge-podge of blood and guts. Perhaps, instead of trying to gross us out every five minutes, he could have glued everything together into a coherent whole. Yeah, that would been good.Pity poor Thora Birch. One minute you're nominated for an Oscar for your incredible work in American Beauty, then just seven years later you're reduced to playing dual roles in a rubbishy low-budget horror. Your characters are, amongst other indignities, punched, stabbed and raped repeatedly, and you even have undergo a forced abortion while still awake by a maniac slicing open your belly. And believe me, that ain't the half of it.The heroine of I Spit On Your Grave had it easy, compared to this. Time for a new agent, methinks. Get on it, girl. 4/10

Thora Birch, child of Hollywood porn legends, stars in a dual role -- blonde and brunette.One sees demons or killers or visions. Take your pick.It doesn't really matter.The movie rambles and barely tells a story. The music is over the top dramatic and frankly, becomes annoying in 10 minutes.Thora, like her mother, really can't act, so maybe she should consider the same route as mom.It's nearly impossible to follow the plot because it is exceedingly poorly directed.Scenes cut back and forth with no apparent reason.Endless talking that makes no sense and serves to bore the viewer to death.Stay away! Stay Away! It really stinks.

"Dark Corners" is a better-than-expected slasher with some good points.**SPOILERS**Trying to get pregnant, Susan, (Thora Birch) and David Hamilton, (Christien Anholt) become concerned about a series of weird dreams she's having. Trying to get to the bottom of the dreams, Dr. Woodleigh, (Toby Stevens) finds that they are the manifestations of stress towards an upcoming fertilization treatment and it stops them for awhile. Coming back soon after, she realizes that the dream-world manifestation of herself, Karen Clarke, (Thora Birch) has her friends stalked by a ruthless killer that is the re-embodiment of a killer in her world, and tries to use her skills to solve the killings so her dream-world part can stay alive while making sure to save the baby.The Good News: This one wasn't that bad when it had something to offer. The best part to this is that there's a great idea to this presented through the plot. Normally, the double identity trick is deployed differently, given off as the subconscious actions of her imagination that manage to get the point across, which is really unique and does work here. There's also the rather suspenseful way that the film utilizes the differences between them to generate some really nice atmosphere. The normal world is always light and fun, while the manifestations are always dark and dirty, really nice and managing to make them feel even worse than they already are. That's a fun tactic and really allows for some really creepy scenes, since it's always a little more tense and disturbing when it goes into that world. That's due to it really making use of some great slasher stylings. From the dark-masked, imposing killer to the way that the stalking scenes are set-up, which are well-done and rarely, if ever, disappoint, there's a lot to like. One of the better ones, where it stalks after a victim through a series of disgusting alleyways into the warehouse, complete with escape attempts and tactics to get away, leaving all of these scenes rather impressive and enjoyable. Some of the others, including one in the restrooms at the office and a tense confrontation within the home that records the fight over the phone to the oblivious party listening in, these confrontations are all pretty entertaining. The last good point is that there's a handful of really nice and particularly brutal kills. Besides the one where they're choked out on the phone cord, there's an incredibly graphic slit throat, another has their stomach carved open and is gutted and a whole mess of them are found mangled, torn up, dismembered, dissected and much more, leaving us with a lot of violent and bloody aftermath. All of these here are what make the film worthwhile.The Bad News: There wasn't a whole lot to this one that didn't work. The main factor in this one is the fact that there's just no way around understanding what's going on in here. Figuring out what happened in this one is going to take a major toll on the viewer, as this one is just nearly impossible to figure out, switching between the two worlds with relative ease and hardly makes any distinction, making it even harder to determine. Even beyond that, determining what the film is really about will give a real headache to many out there. Even worse, when the ending came along, it had the perfect opportunity to try to explain what had happened but instead, nothing at all made sense in this. This was an incredibly bad move and just really deflated the movie considerably, enough to really became a factor to get over and presents the movie with it's biggest flaw.The Final Verdict: With some good visuals but is really flawed when it comes time to think about it, this one isn't that bad. Give this one a shot if you're into that kind of film, find these interesting or just looking for something with something more to it than normal, while those who aren't fans should heed caution.Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Nudity

The acting in this film, particularly that from the always-pleasing Christien Anholt, is above average. The art direction and cinematography, though nowhere near Oscar-worthy, are quite good too. But those are the only things that keep this film from going directly into the toilet.Odd characters abound in here, along with many strange occurrences, without explanation. The viewer is left guessing as to what's actually going on, which is actually a good thing in the middle of the movie -- but when the film ends that way, not so much.And this one does. Just as the story is coming to an end, we're thrown a series of curve-balls and then thrown back to the middle with such a vague explanation (if it can even be called that) for the weird events in the body of the movie that we're left wondering if it's actually over. It's a relief to have it done with, but the story doesn't actually end so much as just come to a stop.What's really horrible about that is that a clear ending was well within reach. We do learn the identity of the Night Stalker serial killer. Who were Karen's fellow bus riders, appearing from nowhere at such unusual moments? What was the deal with the police detective, behaving like Longstreet in one scene and like Columbo in another? Why did the elderly male corpse get up and try to talk to Karen? And who, really, was the main perspective character -- or characters? Was there any real significance to the number 618? Granted, this has all the earmarks of a strongly "theme-oriented" story, so a strong plot, clear-cut setting, and compelling characters would have been just distracting. It's just too bad the theme couldn't have been made a bit clearer.My recommendation: unless you enjoy watching people being tortured to death with no logical explanation, only to see them suddenly come back to life to start the process all over again, skip this movie.