'Creature of Darkness' DVD Review

A cheesy, sub-SyFy creature feature that can be enjoyed only as an unintentional comedy.

Andrew (Devon Sawa) is a young man haunted by dreams of being attacked by a vicious creature. His friends Mason and Heather try to relieve his pill-popping ways by taking him on a group camping and mountain biking excursion in the hills one weekend, but little do they know that that area is the hunting ground for a towering alien looking for human body parts.

Andrew, it turns out, was warned about this years ago by his supposedly crazy uncle, a military pilot who'd been abducted by aliens and discovered their plot to gather human specimens for some sort of intergalactic museum. Andrew's love interest in the group, Gina (Sanoe Lake), actually blames him for not warning them ahead of time, as if they would've believed his story.

Soon, the off-roaders begin disappearing -- all together now -- ONE BY ONE, sucked into some sort of invisible vortex trap set by the alien "catcher." The alien particularly values unique-looking human specimens: people with tattoos and minorities, for instance -- a distinction that, if applicable to all horror movies, would at least explain why black people tend to die first.

The action unfolds in predictable horror movie fashion: the group argues about their course of action, people wander off and never return, alien closeups masquerading the fact that the filmmakers couldn't afford a full body suit, a gratuitous shower scene, the cowardly hero eventually grows a pair, and some nonsense about time travel.

Everything about the production value of Creature of Darkness screams budget, from the 1990 flight simulator CGI to the cheap wannabe "Predator vision" first-person viewpoint to the obvious smoke machine chugging out puffs in the background. Surprisingly, though, the cast is packed with familiar faces, from Sawa (Final Destination) to Lake (Blue Crush) to Matthew Lawrence (Joey's little brother), Kevin Alejandro (Ugly Betty, Southland), Fernanda Romero (The Eye) and Siena Goines (Flight of the Living Dead). You feel sorry for the actors, who are all above this material, but to their credit, they give it their all -- sometimes comically so (Sawa appears on the verge of a heart attack during some of his more emotional moments.).

In the end, there's enough of a manic energy to the performances, enough "action" (if that's what you want to call it) sequences and enough bad dialogue ("The nightmare wants our women.") to make Creature of Darkness occasionally enjoyable as an excursion in train-wreck filmmaking.

The DVD

No special features.

Movie: D+
DVD: F

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