Part of the Ghost House Underground series of DVDs, Dark Floors is a Finnish fright film about a haunted hospital. Single dad Ben (Noah Huntley) is there trying to get help for his autistic daughter, Sarah (Skye Bennett), when the MRI machine starts smoking. The girl babbles about wanting a red crayon, which is at least markedly less expensive than a pony.
They get on the elevator with the nurse and a handful of other people, then get off to an empty floor. It’s like the whole place has vacated, but all the doors are locked and their communication devices won’t work. Why? Lordy, it’s Lordi!
Being American, you may ask, “WTF is a Lordi?” Apparently, it’s a heavy metal band in which its members dress in demonic costumes. (Think GWAR, minus the name recognition.) They’re hiding out in the hospital to kill off the humans, one by one, growling all the way.
Director Pete Riski gets some good effects out of what looks to be a sizable budget, particularly the first ghost sequence, but sad to say, the flick is boring while you wait between appearances of the various monsters. It’s kind of like watching an elevator count down floors while you’re in it: You’re barely paying attention.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
—Rod Lott
Like Nancy Drew with a multicultural cast, the bright, boisterous Girls pits Candy mostly against the ne’er-do-wells of “Red China.” The film has her scurrying up and down a dumbwaiter, tossing a guy off a balcony to his death, and saved from a booby-trapped car from that hunk known as Murray Hamilton. But nothing is as awesome as the prologue, which finds her driving her fellow students in a bus, and practically killing them all because of a spider dangling in front of her. She swerves all over the damn road; has she ever heard of brakes?
As expected, the script is stupid, the acting is atrocious, but the action scenes are kick-ass — gratuitous, over-the-top violence where bad guys can get sliced in two with the flick of a knife. In other words, when’s the freakin’ sequel? Next time, Sly, you need to throw in Blade, The Glimmer Man, Snake Plissken, The Marine, Bloodfist, American Ninja, The Perfect Weapon and — oh, what the hell — Lionheart. Certainly they can’t be all that busy. —Rod Lott
The French film is spooky, thanks mostly to Christiane’s mask, a blank stare that no doubt influenced Michael Myers’ emotionless cover. Franju aims for a marathon, not a sprint, with deliberate pacing that gets you involved with the characters. In other words, this is an intelligent film that just happens to appeal to base senses, with evocative photography and a memorable score, which sounds like the theme from 