Dark Ride

Icon Films Australia

R4 DVD

Dark Ride is one of eight films featured in the After Dark Horrorfest and it has had a limited release in US theatres and reaches Australian shores on DVD via Icon. Dark Ride harkens back to the Slasher films of the Eighties, it has lots of gore, nudity and as many scares as it can pack in. Using a ghost ride as the background to the major horror section of the film allows the film-makers to create a textured background filled to the brim with classic images of horror and violence as well as provided a vast number of wrong turns, jumps, starts and “fake scares”.

The plot is suitably bizarre. A family runs a ghost attraction at a local amusement park called the “Dark Ride”, the younger child is seemingly normal, while the older, Jonah is deformed and has the mental age of a young child but the oversized body of a strong adult, he lives imprisoned in the basement of the ride. He kills and mutilates two young girls using their bodies to create new attractions, “Jonah see, Jonah do”. He is locked in a mental asylum.

This brings the film to the present where a group of rather unlikeable college students decide to take a road trip. Along the way one of them “finds” a brochure on the ride and they decide to give it a look. Earlier Jonah has escaped from the asylum after been taunted with a steak (!) and the smell of blood sends him into a fury, killing the guards he makes for the Dark Ride.

Of course as Jonah and the students collide bloody mayhem erupts, there are some nice twists and turns and an especially nice ending with the unveiling of one of the group as Jonah’s younger brother.

The guts and gore factor is high with some superbly done special effects (I especially like the head splitting of the security guard) and a good balance of violence and suspense.

Is Dark Ride a success ? Well, I am unsure. While it has a lot of pluses with some great suspense sequences, the characters are unlikeable and the build-up to the action at the Dark Ride takes way too long. Except for the interlude at the asylum, the set up of the road trip etc seems to continue forever especially with a group of rather bland and irritating characters.

That being said the use of a carnival type background gives this film a great texture and mood and it certainly is superior when it comes to many other “teen” horror films on the market. The acting is reasonable and while the characters are not especially endearing, once you get through the buildup and into the Dark Ride it is worth the wait.