I first learned about Director Adrienne Lovette from the short horror/mystery film Hidden Daylight that came out in 2016. This short almost serves as a companion to The Dark Room. It has familiar faces in its cast most notably John Rice who plays the role of psychic in both films. While the characters are quite distinct in both films, Lovette is slowly emerging on the horror scene and she is certainly a director to watch out for. The pacing and feel of both films are quite similar, and really show that they have the same director, which in my opinion, is always a plus.
The Dark Room’s plot centers around a psychic party that five people in their 30’s partake in for an evening of weirdly rude antics involving the paranormal realm. The characters do have slight stereotypes. A young professional couple serves as the trailer trash couple. A lone moody person brings some balance to dark and broody. Although the performances range from mediocre, the Meiberel character played by Erica Camarano was well done.
Without question, Sam (John Rice), the host of the gathering, harbors some sort of dark secret and his motives for the get-together seem quite sinister. Unfortunately, this isn’t a spoiler, because it is rather evident from the start. The problem with short films, even with longer runtimes of 21 minutes like this one, is that the pacing needs to be impeccable. In my opinion, that is one of The Dark Room’s weaknesses. The audience is all of a sudden put into the plot with character development without any breathing room. A lot occurs too fast, and while this is unfortunate because the setting and camerawork are breathtaking, It feels more like the visual style is too overpowering, which from my perspective, takes away the fright one would expect in a ghost story.
From my perspective, nothing is wrong The Dark Room. I always thought it was an incredibly well directed short film, however, I can’t help but feel disappointed because I know it could have been so much better. They say short films are the base for full features and I surely think this is the case here. If this was the test footage for what’s to come, I’d genuinely be enthused.
Considering everything, The Dark Room is a reasonable blend of horror and mystery. It employs overused horror cliches, but has enough substance and production to appeal to a majority of horror enthusiasts.
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