Sunday, July 20, 2014

Movie review - "Dark Places" (1973) *

Little known "old dark house" horror flick from the early 70s, with a cast that is way too good for it. Various people try to get their hands on some money at an old estate (which has a shameful lack of decent production value); the novelty of Joan Collins and Christopher Lee as sister and brother is fun for a while, especially with the incestuous longings, but eventually wears off. Robert Hardy is miscast as a leading man, Herbert Lom under-used as a lawyer. Jane Birkin is pretty as a femme fetale and Jean Marsh adds some class as a housekeeper, but both their parts are too small.

It lacks suspense, it's an ugly looking movie (as so many 70s horror flicks were, whereas they weren't in the 60s), it feels as though it's shot like an episode of a crappy 70s TV show, and the script is dumb.

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