These are two films back
to back by Robert J. Massetti. In the
first film When Shadows
Lie Darkest, is a story
of a man named Frank Moore (Jon Fish)
talking to a shrink (or you may think a
shrink) wondering if his nightmares are
real or not when he is dreaming of
killing people that makes him angry.
In the second part of
this DVD titled Blackout,
A desperate housewife named Sarah
(Katharine Leis) murders her drunken
out-of-work abusive husband Jeff (Nick
Colemeo) with some scissors during a
power blackout and is questioned by the
police about it.
She has tried beforehand to leaving him
but he convinces her that he will never
let her even from beyond his grave.
She befriends a musician named Derrick
(Nick Collameo) who loves to pull little
pranks on her as he knows about her
murdering her husband as her husband is
haunting Derrick's house and has alot
more shocking stories to tell her.
This two parter of
two different stories lacked a budget big
time and didn't use a boom mic for the
audio when the actors were performing
which is just one of those typical movies
that someone local decided to take his
own digital camcorder and gathered up his
friends then said "Hey let's make a
movie!"
Well the first parter When
Shadows Lie Darkest was very
bland and not going anywhere at the same
time you think to yourself "Why is
this happening???" Still it lacked a
good plot.
The next chapter
titled Blackout was an
improvement for a no budgeter as it keeps
you in suspense of what's going to happen
next and it's very spooky too if you had
a fear of ghosts when you were a child
and being scared of the dark too.
It is very mysterious and explains itself
about someone with a split personality.
The acting was a
little stale in When Shadows Lie
Darkest as Jon Fish sometimes
overly does it but at the same time knew
how to snap and act crazy from acting
calm too.
Nick Colameo as the bug
exterminator really got on my nerves and
was very mellodramatic. He really was way
too over the top and needed some acting
lessons.
In Blackout
though the acting was okay as
Katharine Leis seemed not too shabby
as someone who is disturbed about her
past and showing her split personality.
She tried the best she could even if the
film made the acting look bad. She could
possibly be crowned as a scream queen for
future no budget horror flicks too.
In When Shadows Lie
Darkest a killer whacks a guy in
the chest with a mine pic. At the end a
guy slashes his wrist.
In Blackout
Katherine's character is
bloodied and so is Nick's part.
She stabs Nick's character
repeatedly with a pair of scissors.
Robert J.
Massetti's work is well... passable
in most scene's but sometimes needed
improvements in others.
In the When Shadows Lie Darkest
chapter he does show some good shots on
lead actor Jon Fish having his emotional
problems lying on the couch talking to a
shrink as well as acting psychotic and
showing insane expressions too.
We have many corny dialgoues between Fish
and Nick Colameo about
discussing a bug problem which looked
terribly trashy but yet there are good
camera shots on them with a camera
looking up between them talking as well
as single shots on them too.
We have a good shot on Fish in
the end spinning around in his chair and
then standing up removing a grim reaper
type of hood.
In Blackout
he shows some excellent scenery
with the blackout disturbing the
murdering as well as having the ghost
appearing out of nowhere which is very
frightening.
We spot many good camera shots that
involves Nick Collameno looking
around and seeing a door opening and then
the phone ringing which makes you jump a
bit. There's also a good shot of the door
opening a bit and then the face of a
supporting actor Nick Colemeno
playing a ghost briefly shown next to the
door as it looks cheesy but creepy at the
same time.
There's a nice shot with Collameno
on the phone with the Colemeno coming
up from behind him.
We have a good dialogue between
Collameno and Katharine Leis in
a vehicle and her being closed minded and
a good blunt attitude with him telling
her off which looked very believeable
too.
There's also a nice shot on each of them
when he tries to confront her about her
abusive husband.
There's a nice close up shot on Leis
washing her hands with soap and a
flashback on her washing her bloody
hands.
Then we have a flashback scene with her
and Colemeno which was directed
a little rusty but it's mostly due to the
acting skills too. Colemeno
wasn't believeable with his abusive
actions but we do spot some good shots on
Leis reaching for some scissors and then
raising them up from her head and
slamming them down along with a nice
bloody shot on Colemeno as a
dead corpse.
Craig Padilla's
score for this film is passable but
nothing too over the top but does do a
nice synthesizing sounds for the When
Shadows Lie Darkest chapter.
During the When
Shadows Lie Darkest chapter we
have a metal soundtrack by underground
groups such as "Morning Star"
performed by Fas Eter and
"Scratch the World" performed
by Death Becomes You.
There is a lame soundtrack
in the Blackout chapter
by underground groups like "Feel So
Black" performed by Mark Feil,
"Good Old Times" performed by Emigrantz,
"I Want You" performed by Cardiaca,
"Breathe for Me", "Blurred
and Muted", "Where Beauty
Ends" performed by Dearbon
and Luis Duran Deadstar Assembly,
"The Dead Don't Die" perfomed
by Death Becomes You.
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