Good morning, House of Madness residents:
Every day in life we're each presented with choices. Some are as simple as choosing what colour of shirt to wear, whereas others can have a meaningful impact on your or someone else's day. Choosing the 'Jalapeno Burrito Bonanza' for breakfast when you're set to do team meetings in close proximity to others all day probably wasn't the best choice, and now you're going to be receiving a call from Cathy in HR about your company's 'code of conduct' procedures. Standing up to your 6'8 bully of a neighbour felt like the right thing to do, but now that you'll be living the rest of your life with a concave face tells you maybe that wasn't the best choice. For Tilly (Anna Bullard), Monica (Annie Hamilton), and Peter (Rory Alexander), the choices they made on one fateful night will have ramifications forever, and they're just getting started in paying the piper.
Tilly, Peter, and Monica are attending the funeral of their recently deceased friend Ali (Grace Binford Sheene), after she was killed in a car crash all four of them were involved in. From everyone's behaviour (especially Ali's Uncle Bob (Morten Holst), it's obvious Tilly has either taken the blame for the accident, or simply been labeled as the guilty party in a horrific tragedy. As the three friends chat, they decide it's high time to get away from everyone and everything, and head up to Monica's grandmother's summerhouse in the countryside for a weekend getaway.
Upon arriving at the summerhouse, the three 'friends' seem to dislike each other's company, and venture off separately within the home to do their own thing. Not only is this odd, but for three young adults (one of them being a closet alcoholic) they don't plan very well, and nobody has brought up any booze. As Peter heads into town to score some suds, Monica and Tilly are on the outs, then they're fine, then they're not, and finally they're back on each other's good side in time for Peter's return. The chemistry between the three friends is kind of like peanut butter on a hamburger, in which it looks like it's not working from the outside, but for some reason it all fits together quite nicely for those involved. After a few more drinks, the three unlikely friends decide to call it a night.
The next morning Tilly wakes up to all the windows being wide open, and just assumes it was Peter whom she rescued from a drunken state the night before. Turns out none of them opened the windows, and in the other room someone has set up a shrine to Ali, to which none of them claims responsibility for. Time to go! The three run for the car only to find someone has tampered with the engine, and the vehicle is about as useful as a condom on a Kardashian, leaving them stranded. As we the audience have been privy to and the characters have not, there's a masked man stalking them from the shadows, and it seems it's only a matter of time before he makes his move. What does he want, and how does he know the things he knows? Was someone else there at the crash site, or has the Devil himself come to reap their souls for a horrible choice made not so long ago?
"Dark Windows" is a pretty cool concept, but executed poorly. The characters aren't really believable, and we certainly don't resonate with them and their peculiar behaviour towards one another. I will say that when I was just about fed up with all the nonsensical things happening on screen, the final ten minutes swooped in and didn't necessarily save a sorry film, but certainly gave it some stability and entertainment. All in all, if you're doing a character study, take a hard pass at this one, but if you're willing to wait seventy minutes to watch ten minutes of badassery, then this might be for you.
Madness Meter: 5/10
NB
