Darkness (1993)

[Jim H]

Anyone know this one?  1993 vampire film shot on super8.  Has a legendary reputation, chiefly for its gore.  There was supposed to be a special edition DVD release of it this year, but the site for it hasn't been updated in forever.  Anyone know where I can source a copy?

[Mr_Vindictive]

This is one that I've always wanted to see but unfortunatly have never been able to track down.  It played at a film festival here in NC earlier this year but I was unable to attend due to a sickness.

Would love to get a copy on DVD.

[Scott]

Just read the reviews at imdb.com for DARKNESS and it's sounds like a winner. It will be at near the top of my list.

Can't even find any images of it on the internet.



Post Edited (10-04-05 10:23)

[kriegerg69]

I have this one on the old VHS release....it's terrific. I exchanged a few emails last year with the director of the film, Leif Jonker, who (at the time) said he was taking his time to do a proper cleaned up and restored edition for the DVD release he was planning on.



Post Edited (10-04-05 23:22)

[Scott]

Thanks for the info Kriegerg69. Hearing only good things about this picture.

[kriegerg69]

For those who want to track down the older VHS release....I say WAIT until Jonker gets the remastered special edition DVD out. It's going to look a LOT better.

[Scott]

Looking forward to a good Vampire flick.

[Mr_Vindictive]

Just checked DeepDiscountDVD for this one after searching for quite a while.  Looks like they finally released the double disc limited edition from Barrel Entertainment!  Picked this sucker up for 16.00!  Can't freakin wait!!!!

[Scott]

Almost forgot about this one that we talked about last year.

[kriegerg69]

http://www.amazon.com/Darkness-Vampire-Version-Leif-Jonker/dp/B000F48D9G/sr=1-2/qid=1159242243/ref=pd_bbs_2/002-6294164-7761641?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

DVD Features:
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
Three feature length audio commentary tracks featuring director Leif Jonker, special FX artist, composer, and cast & crew
"Vampire Bootcamp" - New half-hour documentary featurette with cast & crew interviews
Behind-the-scenes footage of the climactic meltdown sequence
Extended rough-cut of the climactic meltdown sequence
Remastering demonstration
World of Sin, a new music video from Apostasy
Darkness - The 86-minute original release version
Photo Archive - Comprehensive 50-minute gallery of over 1000 images documenting the production and ³life² of the film, all accompanied by excerpts of the original music score for Darkness
Highlights from film festival screenings of Darkness
A brief tour of the production studio
Deth's Oogly Hed - Television interview segment with director Leif Jonker
Alternate/deleted scenes
Original and alternate trailers
Alternate audio track available over the entire BONUS MATERIALS on both discs featuring alternate music and sound as well as commentary from director Leif Jonker and others

[Scott]

Wow, thanks for the info Kriegerg69.

Where have you been my CHILLER THEATER friend?

Can't find your good clip on the Chiller page anymore, but there is bad audio clip on Youtube.

CHILLER THEATER

The earlier WPIX version is on Youtube.

Early Chiller Theater Intro

[Menard]

I had seen this in Best Buy recently. I have it on a German release DVD, in English, in PAL format. For what it is, it is actually pretty good. It would be nice to see a cleaned up version as a lot of night scenes, actually shot at night, are difficult to view.

[Jim H]

I bought this today at Best Buy for $16.99.  I got the single disc release, which has basically everything of the two disc except the original cut (which I would have liked, but I wanted to see the thing now - I've wanted to see the film for 7 or 8 years...  And I dunno if that is worth $5 to me for the other cut).  

BTW, the original release is a rought cut of the film.  They edited it together very quickly at a place that was charging based on how long they were there, and they had no money, then afterwards chopped the film further down using dual VHS decks (e.g., not frame accurate).  It was intended as an early release to raise further funds to finish the film, but that didn't happen til this release.  They also had poor foley mixing and such, and transfered the film to VHS with a video camera pointing at a projector - that copy is the source of the German and Japanese DVDs.

The DVD uses a high quality transfer from the 8mm original, with much more time put into editing, sound and color correction.  I haven't watched the film yet, but the intro movie shows the same scenes several times..  The new disc makes an ENORMOUS difference (comparable to a theatrical bootleg VS Hollywood big budget DVD, almost), though I suspect some scenes will still be dark (the budget of the film was about $5000, and much of it is shot at night - what can you expect?).

I'll post my thoughts on the film later.

[kriegerg69]

Scott Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Wow, thanks for the info Kriegerg69.
>
> Where have you been my CHILLER THEATER friend?
>
> Can't find your good clip on the Chiller page
> anymore, but there is bad audio clip on Youtube.

Don't waste your time with YouTube....Here is the intro with the clips from the various movies:

http://www.21ca.com/chiller/

This page on DVD Drive-In has the "fingers" intro:

http://dvddrive-in.com/Chiller/chiller.htm

[Jim H]

Saw the film finally.  Not terrible, with a few decent moments, but not great either really.  The story barely hangs together, with a lot of transitionary scenes apparently not even there.  Good amount of about 50 timgore, with most of it pretty well done.  The ending meltdown is definetly the most memorable scene though.

Comparisons  to Evil Dead, El Mariachi, etc, are ridiculous.  Those films are far better put together and shot (though Evil Dead has more than 20 times the budget, so hey).

Worth a rental, if you can find it.