The Dark Power

[Used Meathook]

Anybody else seen this one? I found maximum enjoyment in this cheesy little flick.

Essentially, the film involves Native American "wizards" who come up from the ground to wreck havoc. There's parts that are intentionally cheesy (such as a homage to the 3 Stooges), and parts that are unintentionally cheesy (the barebones budget for movies like this always deliver the cheese).

And check this out, the local sheriff in town uses a whip as his weapon of choice. Yes...a whip. A whip-wielding sheriff fights off zombie Native American wizards...if that isn't the plot line for a bad movie, then I don't know what is.

Think of the movie "Scalps", but then up the cheese factor by about 5. Oh, and the blatant racism within the film comes out of nowhere and is hilarious. Not hilarious because racism is funny, but because it was so oddly out of place that you could only view it as hilariously ridiculous.

For the gorehounds out there, there's a particularly nasty little nugget involving a human head. Other than that, it's pretty standard low-budget blood and gore.

[Flick James]

I've never seen it. It's 1985, so I'll bet that the influence of Indiana Jones had something to do with a whip-wielding sheriff. 

I do vaguely remember a television ad for it back in high school.

[JayJayM12]

I've seen this movie MANY times - in fact I own the dvd.  It's definitely one of my favs!  The first time I saw it was in a shortened version in a Horror Remix, so admittedly, I find the short version much more tolerable.  But, still a horrible, funny, great movie overall.

Meathook is right - the racism is SO out of left field, that you really can't do anything BUT laugh at it.  The whip cracker in the movie is none other than Lash LaRue, star of many westerns back in the day.  The final showdown of Old Man With Whip vs. Native American Chief Zombie With Whip is definitely epic.  Not to mention the CONSTANT stretching/working out in a leotard by one of the main cast members.

Great moment to look out for:  when one of the women is shot with an arrow by one of the zombies, the lameness in how they attempted to pull off the effect has to be seen to be believed.  I won't spoil it...

I found the dvd at bestbuy.com for only like 5 or 6 bucks - comes with a commentary and a couple of little featurettes.  Well worth the purchase...

[claws]

I was a bit disappointed with The Dark Power and Alien Outlaw. They are both pretty bad indeed, but also dull which kills the fun cheese in my opinion.
I rated both 2.5/5 as both certainly had their moments.

[Used Meathook]

Well...I'd be lying if I said that The Dark Power picked up quite quickly, haha. Although, I didn't find myself bored during the "plot" build up like most horror flicks. Actually, I thought the build up was pretty funny and entertaining. But then again, I'm also somebody who thought the 50 uses of unnecessary slow motion sequences in Sledgehammer were entertaining too.

[Jack]

I didn't really care for it.  "Horror" movies tend to fail for me when I'm hoping the characters will die because they're all so unlikable.  And if I remember correctly it was pretty obvious who would live and die anyway.  And it really seemed like they had a 45 minute screenplay and stretched it out to 90 minutes by just having Lash LaRue recite some dialogue for 5 minutes, several times, like he was reading out of an encyclopedia.  And wasn't there some scene where a teacher was helping a kid with his homework for 5 minutes?  And some other scene where a plumber showed up and worked on something for about 5 minutes?

Anyhow, not a favorite of mine.  Glad you got some enjoyment out of it though   

[Doggett]

I have this on DVD and can't remember a thing about it.

it really seemed like they had a 45 minute screenplay and stretched it out to 90 minutes

Is exactly whats wrong with it. 

[RCMerchant]

YEh. I own it. Amazing. The box is better than the film,though-

[Used Meathook]

"Indian zombies get heap big revenge on white man!"

...OMG, that tagline on the VHS box is priceless.