The Dark Below Review

When Douglas Schulze, director of “The Dark Below”, stated to “be ready for something different” prior to the world premiere screening of his movie at Fantasia International Film Festival, the microphone must have been faulty and we probably didn’t hear the end of his sentence, which was probably: “… from a good movie.” Following his statements were some of the longest 75 minutes of cinematic experience of my life.

“The Dark Below” starts off with a man choking out a woman. He drugs her, dresses her in scuba gear, and takes her out to the frozen lake behind the small cabin in which they were just fighting. He then proceeds to send her down into the ice-cold waters through a hole in the ice. That’s pretty much the whole movie.

The movie has one sentence throughout the entire 75 minutes. ONE. FRIGGIN’. SENTENCE. I understand that the director was attempting some experimental cinematic experience, but this was simply ridiculous. I have so many swear words I would like to include in this review, but wish for my article to stay up, so I’ll avoid doing so.

The fact that there practically is no dialogue in the full movie is only one of its numerous excruciating details. I would have to estimate that 80% of the movie is in slow-motion, as if to compensate for the lack of concrete storyline that the movie has. Sure, the movie tries to give a backstory on the characters with flashbacks of how they met, how she had a child, and how sinister her husband really is. However, the acting is horrible (and that’s a polite way of putting it) and the extensive dragging on of opera-like singing and music to try to give a poetic look to the movie made me look around the theatre to wonder if I was the only one to be furious while viewing the movie. Not to mention the fact that a third of the main actress’ performance is of her gasping for air (in frustrating slow motion, of course) under a patch of ice that had enough space for her to breathe.

This, along with an infamous film entitled “Pig”, has to be one of the worst attempts at a movie that I have ever had the misfortune to view. The director was sitting a few seats away from me during the movie’s screening, and on my way out, I almost grabbed him by the shoulders to yell: “Are you f*cking serious?!” The best description for “The Dark Below” that I had as I stormed out of the movie theatre was: “a short film gone wrong”… in addition to: “WHAT THE F*CK DID I JUST WATCH.”

“The Dark Below” deserves a very generous 0.5 stars out of 5 and should not be viewed at any time, by anyone… unless you really hate someone and force him/her to view this flaming pile of crap.