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Chasing Darkness Directed by: Jason Hull Starring: Todd Humes, Renee Porada, Katie Russell Reviewed by: Scott West |
| Final Score: Movie:   DVD Extras: N/A Overall Score: |
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Early word on Chasing Darkness billed it as a mafia-meets-vampires flick, so I came to the table expecting a dark violent comedy a la Innocent Blood. What I got was almost as violent, but not nearly as funny or entertaining. The story of Chasing Darkness follows mafia enforcer Vinnie Carpone (Todd Humes) in his struggles to repay an unnamed debt to mob boss Dominic (Larry Liggett). After a botched hit against the head of a vampire clan, Vinnie wants out of his debt and tries to walk away from a life of crime only to find that he's got Hell on his tail with both the mob and now some very pissed-off vampires wanting him dead. The first thing that stands out about Chasing Darkness is that it is very well shot. This no doubt has to do with the inclusion of Paul Gorman (GMD Films) as director of photography. This makes the film look good and adds to the value in that it looks like a bigger budget film than it actually is. The only complaint with the visuals is that a lot of scenes had a blue tint to them. At first I thought this was intentional to show that the scenes in question were night scenes, but a few glaring errors such as someone wearing sunglasses during one of said scenes made me question this and it became more of a distraction than an artistic view on night(?). The acting is surprisingly good for a film consisting mostly of local (Erie area) actors. If you'd told me that I'd be watching Todd Humes carrying a movie almost on his own, I'd have laughed in your face after his turn in Curse of the Wolf (review). I don't know if Todd has matured as an actor or if director Jason Hull is really this adept at pulling out the best in his performers, but here Todd does quite a good job playing the life-just-went-downhill Vinnie. Supporting roles by Katie Russell, Renee Porada (both formerly of Curse of the Wolf) and newcomer Larry Ligget are equally well done on the acting side of things. As is to be expected in a film carried by world class martial artists, the action is very well done. The fight scenes are a little too few and far between for my tastes but, when they're done, they're done very well. I've heard that almost all of the fights were done full contact and it's quite obvious as I'm the type of guy that looks for the obvious pulled punches so that I can poke fun. So we have a nice looking movie with decent acting and great action. So far so good. However, in the writing department, the film falls apart enough to drop the entertainment value a bit. There are a lot of secondary characters and plot points that just aren't satisfactorily explained. A few plotlines are just dropped with no explaination. The worst of the writing is that the Mafia must be the biggest set of buffoons I've ever seen. These guys are supposed to be bad ass, but they come off as cheesy and moronic. On the opposite side, the vampires are never explained at all. They are used only as cannon fodder for Vinnie and his pals to kick, punch, stab and shoot into oblivion. The good guys are all pretty well written, but it seems like not much time was taken to flesh out the villains. This is quite sad as the lead vampire looks awesome (kudos to the FX team for that guy!). But we all know that without a good villain as foil to our heroes, any film will fall apart, and sadly that's exactly what Chasing Darkness does. Overall, Chasing Darkness makes for a fun film to watch as a rental if you're willing to ignore the drawbacks and focus on the positives. It's definately a lot better than one would expect from a first time writer/director. (To Mr. Hull's credit, he had the balls to tackle a feature length film right out of the gate.) With that in mind, I look forward to what Snowdog Studio has in store for the future. |
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