Dark Floors starts in a hospital as a loving & worried father Ben (Noah Huntley) watches on as doctor's perform tests on his young daughter Sarah (Skye Bennett) to try & figure out what, if anything, is wrong with her. While in a scanning machine Sarah has a panic attack & Ben then insists that they both leave, however that turns out to be rather harder than they first thought. Both Ben & Sarah find themselves trapped inside the hospital along with a nurse named Emily (Dominique McElligott), a security guard & a couple of patients. The group try to find a way out of the hospital but the place seems dead, void of life & when scary ghost's & monsters start turning up & killing everyone off they must somehow find the answers to escape with their lives...
Shot under the title Red Chalk this Finnish & Icelandic co-production was directed by Pete Riski & is also known under the title Dark Floors: The Lordi Motion Picture since it features the European rockers Lordi who back in 2006 represented Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest with something called 'Hard Rock Hallelujah' & amazing won, the first time Finland had won the thing actually. To be perfectly honest I really don't know anything about Lordi (the lead guy apparently calls himself Mr. Lordi) expect that they are a five piece Finnish rock group who perform in monster costumes, the costumes that they parade about in during Dark Floors in fact. Forgetting about Lordi for a moment (I wish...) Dark Floors is a strange little horror thriller that tries to be too complicated for it's own good. The basic set-up is alright with a few people trapped in a seemingly empty & haunted hospital where the corridors & equipment becomes more run down & bizarre things happen. However the script is a mess, nothing is explained with any satisfaction like the whole time loop thing, the vague drawings Sarah does, who are these ghost monster things & what do they want? Why does Ben go from dirty hospital to clean hospital where no-one can see him in an instant? Why is the token black dude the first to die? Why is there an obligatory a-hole character to cause tensions & trouble? What's with the sand? What's with the red (at the stat) & blue (at the end) crayon symbolism? What's with the old bloke & the baffling ending? I assume the whole thing was an internal fight by Sarah to save herself dying or her mind being engulfed by darkness or something like that but honestly it could mean just about anything or just as easily absolutely nothing. I would say 95% of Dark Floors is literally people walking around hospital corridors, right from the start to the very end that's all I felt like I was watching.
The film tries to go for big dramatic moments as often as possible, from Sarah having a fit inside a scanning machine to an elevator breaking down to even a photocopier left on complete with ominous music & everyone looking worried (just turn the damned thing off!). The set & effects were better than I expected, the set are impressive & the CGI computer effects were alright. The band Lordi in their monster costumes look a little silly but at least they don't have to speak or act. There's not much blood or gore here, there's a decent bit where someone has their heart ripped out but otherwise Dark Floors is fairly tame.
The most expensive film in Finnish cinematic history boasting the biggest set ever made for a Finnish film I take it Finland doesn't produce much cinema then? Despite being an Icelandic & Finnish production Dark Floors was filmed in English with a mainly British cast, there's actually nothing to indicate that Dark Floors is European at all. The acting is alright, I wonder if the actor's knew what the hell the film was about though?
Dark Floors is a well made film that with a better script & stronger twist's could have been a neat little mind bending horror thriller, as it is Dark Floors is a confused mess of a film featuring Eurovision Song Contest winners trying to be scary. Far too obscure & ambiguous for me to enjoy I'm afraid.
Shot under the title Red Chalk this Finnish & Icelandic co-production was directed by Pete Riski & is also known under the title Dark Floors: The Lordi Motion Picture since it features the European rockers Lordi who back in 2006 represented Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest with something called 'Hard Rock Hallelujah' & amazing won, the first time Finland had won the thing actually. To be perfectly honest I really don't know anything about Lordi (the lead guy apparently calls himself Mr. Lordi) expect that they are a five piece Finnish rock group who perform in monster costumes, the costumes that they parade about in during Dark Floors in fact. Forgetting about Lordi for a moment (I wish...) Dark Floors is a strange little horror thriller that tries to be too complicated for it's own good. The basic set-up is alright with a few people trapped in a seemingly empty & haunted hospital where the corridors & equipment becomes more run down & bizarre things happen. However the script is a mess, nothing is explained with any satisfaction like the whole time loop thing, the vague drawings Sarah does, who are these ghost monster things & what do they want? Why does Ben go from dirty hospital to clean hospital where no-one can see him in an instant? Why is the token black dude the first to die? Why is there an obligatory a-hole character to cause tensions & trouble? What's with the sand? What's with the red (at the stat) & blue (at the end) crayon symbolism? What's with the old bloke & the baffling ending? I assume the whole thing was an internal fight by Sarah to save herself dying or her mind being engulfed by darkness or something like that but honestly it could mean just about anything or just as easily absolutely nothing. I would say 95% of Dark Floors is literally people walking around hospital corridors, right from the start to the very end that's all I felt like I was watching.
The film tries to go for big dramatic moments as often as possible, from Sarah having a fit inside a scanning machine to an elevator breaking down to even a photocopier left on complete with ominous music & everyone looking worried (just turn the damned thing off!). The set & effects were better than I expected, the set are impressive & the CGI computer effects were alright. The band Lordi in their monster costumes look a little silly but at least they don't have to speak or act. There's not much blood or gore here, there's a decent bit where someone has their heart ripped out but otherwise Dark Floors is fairly tame.
The most expensive film in Finnish cinematic history boasting the biggest set ever made for a Finnish film I take it Finland doesn't produce much cinema then? Despite being an Icelandic & Finnish production Dark Floors was filmed in English with a mainly British cast, there's actually nothing to indicate that Dark Floors is European at all. The acting is alright, I wonder if the actor's knew what the hell the film was about though?
Dark Floors is a well made film that with a better script & stronger twist's could have been a neat little mind bending horror thriller, as it is Dark Floors is a confused mess of a film featuring Eurovision Song Contest winners trying to be scary. Far too obscure & ambiguous for me to enjoy I'm afraid.