In short: Darkroom (1989)

When ad executive Janet (Jill Pierce) returns to her family home out in the boons, her mega mullet wearing photographer boyfriend in tow, the worst she expects is having some tense discussions with her gramps as well as said boyfriend about her unwillingness to marry (gasp!). She certainly didn’t count on a slasher with a photography obsession making the local rounds, but soon, she and everyone she loves have to fight for their lives.

By 1989 when this was made, the slasher cycle in its indie incarnation was pretty much in its last gasps, and most films in the genre still coming out were all kinds of unwatchable and dreary. So I can at least compliment director Terrence O’Hara’s and producer Nico Mastorakis’s Darkroom for actually trying to be a decent movie with professional camera work, lighting and sound.

The script clearly tries to get away from many of the teen slasher tropes and return to the suspense well that once spawned the slasher, or perhaps to the giallo, but unfortunately, all the attempts at adding red herrings and something of a murder mystery element to the film fall rather flat because they are so amateurishly written, obvious in their construction, and simply not terribly interesting. And because the film also attempts to keep the sleaze and the gore to a minor level, it doesn’t have too much to help a viewer over these failings.


Sure, O’Hara (who would go on to a prolific TV career that would climax in the true horror of having directed 70 episodes of NCIS and its spin-off) is a capable enough hand at pacing, and he’s a competent director in so far as he has mastered the basics of filmmaking, which automatically puts this in the higher quality bracket of late era slashers, but that doesn’t mean Darkroom is terribly exciting, or atmospheric, or even just fun. It’s a perfectly watchable little film, but not being actively bad isn’t necessarily enough to recommend a movie to anyone but slasher die-hards who just have to see every single entry in the genre or people like me who’ll simply watch anything.