The Dark Power (1985) User Reviews

Ultimate cheese-fest

[Tikkin · 4/10 · 5 March 2006]

Wow, what a cheesy movie this is! It starts off looking like it's gonna be a backwoods slasher, with the camera following dogs running through the woods. It then gets a bit boring and follows the story of some girls moving into some house haunted by Indian spirits. We then get plenty of shots of one partially clad girl and another naked girl in the bath. It suddenly gets really cheesy when the "Zombie Indians" arise from the earth and start terrorising the girls. We even get a samurai Indian.

This movie starts off pretty boring although I did find the story of the four Indians who buried themselves alive quite interesting. Once the Indian zombies (or whatever you want to call them for they aren't technically zombies) start terrorising the girls is when all the fun begins. This is not a special flick and can't be taken seriously, it's just something fun to watch when you're bored or when you're drinking with friends. I can't help thinking though that it would have worked better as a short story because the first half is tediously boring.

Lash vs. zombies!

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 3 January 2019]

My father, grandfather and uncle used to play this game when we had cookouts, late into the night, where they would list the initials of a famous actor and they'd all have to guess. Tom Mix, Rex Allen, Tex Ritter...the list would go on and on. Then there would be "LL" -- who of course ended up being Lash LaRue.

Lash started his career as the Cheyenne Kid, the sidekick of singing cowboy Eddie Dean, whose whip wasn't just for show. Lash was an expert in using one, able to disarm villains and perform other tricks (he was also the trainer for Harrison Ford as he prepared to play Indiana Jones). After appearing in all three of the Eddie Dean's singing western films, Lash starred in eleven "Marshal Lash LaRue" strange western films for PRC, a Poverty Row (the name given for the lower than B-level studios that churned out films in the 1940's) studio and Eagle-Lion. Unlike many cowboys, Lash spoke with a street patois, not unlike the actor he resembled, Humphrey Bogart (so much so that character actress Sarah Padden (Murder by Invitation) asked if they were related. When Lash said no, she looked him dead in the eye and asked, "Did your mother ever meet Humphrey Bogart?").

But unlike those big-time Hollywood stars, Lash would actually come to your town, showing off his whip skills and convincing young cowboys and cowgirls that there was at least one movie star hero who could actually do all of the things he did on screen.

Unbenowst to Lash, his role as a villain in 1972's Hard on the Trail was actually in an adult film. While he had a non-sex role and had no idea that the film was X-rated, he spent the next ten years repenting as a missionary.

That brings us to 1985's The Dark Power, a regional horror movie made by director Phil Smoot, who also directed Alien Outlaw, which also starred LaRue.

A North Carolina regional horror film, this one starts with a near full minute of a yard sign. Yep. It reads:

SAMMY & EARL "THE FIX-IT BROTHERS" IF WE CAN'T FIX-IT... THROW IT AWAY! CALL 99 FIX-IT

What follows is a fat child messing around with a bow and arrow, juxtaposed with wild dogs chasing after him, POV-style. Once the four dogs catch up to him, he runs for about ten feet before falling down and crying. Luckily, he's saved by Ranger Girard (Lash, of course) and his skills with the bullwhip, which never come near the dogs thanks to some, well, poor editing and sound dubbing.

Meanwhile, one of the Ranger's friends, a Native American mystic, expires Citizen Kane-style after saying the word, "Toltec." Turns out that the Toltecs were Aztec occult priests who liked to live inside the Earth and build great evil power. The bad news? They're coming back, thanks to their eagle symbols that no one understands but the ranger. Luckily, a local news girl and her inept cameraman -- everything he shoots turns green -- are here to tell the tale.

The Native American mystics house is sold to some college kids, who take turns eating snacks, working out in leotards, being racist to one another, drinking beer and taking baths and showers. It's as if they demanded that some kind of inhuman force rise and kill them all, one by one. Good news -- they're gonna get what they asked for.

While all that's going on, the reporter keeps flirting with Lash, who has gone from looking like Bogie to looking like a grandfatherly man with Q-Tip-esque hair. Imagine a more well-groomed Santa Claus, in a Scoutmaster outfit, with a whip. I guess I can see how some ladies -- and bear lovers -- could be into this. I mean, just check out this sexy dialogue:

Mary: Of course, some girls might be a little crazier about whips than others.

Ranger Girard: You know about my whip?

The Toltecs rise from their graves, accompanied by a soundtrack that is recorded on what can only be described as an xylophone and kazoo symphony. Also -- they speak like the characters from a cartoon and slap one another often.

The townspeople are all horrible.. Let's be honest. They're all fat, mean and given to fits of pure stupidity. They even let their fat children steal their vehicles. Thank God Lash is there to defend them, beating on zombie Aztec priests with the power of his whip skills, slur yelling dialogue like, "All right, you demonic B word, let's take this outside!" and "Feel my whip, you SOB!"

Man -- at one point Lash was one of the biggest stars in the country. Yet here he is, in one of his last films, gamely swinging his whip at the undead. It's not great. But it's certainly entertaining.

Toltec Sorcerers like their College Coeds Bare & Clueless

[Coventry · 2/10 · 18 May 2009]

Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to introduce to you …. The Toltecs! This ancient Latin American tribe, even preceding the Aztecs, supposedly had the most malevolent and bloodthirsty sorcerers, yet they get their asses whooped by a couple of college floozies and a one-hundred-and-seven-year old lawman with a whip! But before you get to see this, however, you have to struggle through more than 40 minutes of sheer boredom, infantile pranks and sleazy sequences that don't contain any actual sleaze. In case I haven't made myself entirely clear yet: "The Dark Power" is an indescribably cheesy and inept piece of 80's horror crap that still manages to be amusing because of its sheer and somewhat charming stupidity factor. Writer/director Phil Smoot's intentions were obviously admirable, but he – as well as the rest of the cast & crew – lacked the talent and financial means to deliver something even half-decent. Smoot carefully watched "The Evil Dead" and other similar demonic-themed movies, and somehow must have thought he could pull this off as well. The movie opens with an old Indian guy dying in his isolated countryside house; barely speaking out his last word above a whisper … Toltecs. His grandson promptly rents out house to a bunch of college chicks, including a typically 80's aerobics babe, a cute black girl and a racist redneck gal. Soon they will discover why exactly the old Indian lived like a hermit, as he was actually the guardian of an ancient Toltec burial ground. Toltec sorcerers buried themselves alive, only to emerge again thousands of years later and feed on the flesh of the living. And, honestly, is there any better tasting flesh than that of bimbos? As hinted at before already, the first half of "The Dark Power" is terribly lame and sleep-inducing. The clichéd pranks, the retarded dialogs and the ridiculously overlong footage of Lash LaRue swinging around his whip seem to go on forever. Then, the movie loses its last smidgen of credibility when the Toltec sorcerers emerge from the ground. Instead of menacing, they look like drugged out hard rock stars with imbecile masks and drunken gestures. Exactly ONE gory moment is worth mentioning, when a guy's lips are stretched out over his entire skull, but overall even the carnage aspect of this movie is disappointing. The only remotely worthwhile moments are utterly senseless, like when a 9-year-old kid (named Cletus!) goes joyriding with his uncle's truck or when the vulgar naked chick sips beer in the bathtub after working out. Seriously, unless you get turned on by the sight of a 1940's western veteran swinging around his whip at nothing, I'd advise to skip this film.

I worked on this film...

[DBCely · 9 April 2005]

This was my first movie as "Gaffer," or Chief Lighting Technician, and boy does it show. My apologies to all viewers! Director-Producer Phil Smoot, is one of the nicest guys in the film business, however, and he constantly encouraged everyone to do their best on this little film.

One of my fondest memories was working with Lash LaRue. Lash was a consummate professional, full of great stories and patient with our inexperienced crew. I'll never forget how one night, waiting what seemed like hours for a shot to be set up, Lash just sat on an applebox, casually flipping his ever-present whip. There was a roll of toilet paper hanging from the handle of the tripod head mounted on the camera dolly. Lash would flick that whip of his, neatly tearing off one sheet of TP at a time. There was a little pile of single toilet paper sheets, steadily growing as time passed by.

Funny how little memories stay with you.

Low budget but worth watching

[MarkSweepstakes · 5/10 · 29 August 2020]

"The Dark Power" is hardly better than a student film. It makes no sense and the acting and direction is horrible. The non-stop screaming from the girls at the end becomes very annoying, and the interminable back-and-forth "whip fight" between Lash and the Toltec desperately needs editing. Otherwise it's a totally rad 80's horror-comedy flick and an interesting way to pass 120 minutes.

The location of the house is 9080 Leisure Point Lane, Belews Creek, N.C. and it still looks pretty much exactly the same, inside and out!

Toltec Power! The power that causes brain deterioration...

[Vomitron_G · 3/10 · 10 January 2009]

Wow... I suspected this one to be bad... But now I find myself just at a loss for words... Honestly, no words of mine can do this movie any justice...

I'll try to say something anyway...

This truly is one unique gem. One of the worst kind.

Lash La Rue - given his background as an actor - doing a whip-fight with a Toltec sorcerer-zombie during the movie's climax...??? A true stroke of genius, without a doubt.

It rarely happens that I laugh out loud when watching a movie alone. It happened numerous times with this one.

The accents of the actors, man, the accents... And the dialogues I heard them speak... And the acting itself... I just couldn't believe what I was hearing.

That fat uncle farting so loudly (when walking up to the house together with his little nephew) for no apparent reason whatsoever...

Tits! Yes, there's titties! And female ass! There's even a naked chick in a bathtub sipping a beer...

That one "stretch his mouth over his face"-kill was the bomb! A true highlight.

The comedy-aspects were just totally bonkers. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. For a while I even thought that they were unintentional, shaking my head in disbelief. But about halfway in the movie, I started to get the bigger picture. Guess it took me half a movie to dumb-down half of my brain, to finally get it.

I had a really hard time believing this movie... But it's good, really, I think. It had one black chick walking up to a very tiny cupboard, opening it and then saying "Wooow, look at all the storage space!". And she said it like she meant it. I mean, that's good dialogue and good acting, right?

Oh, and perhaps needless to say: Lash La Rue's whip-skills suck major ass in THE DARK POWER. It's really sad and pathetic to behold. That's all part of the comedy, of course. Or wait, I might be wrong. No, yes, I'm wrong. Lash La Rue was amazing with the whip! It was the editor's fault. He messed it up, cutting his lashes together and all. Or wait, it might have been the camera operator. He filmed from the wrong angles... Then why didn't Phil Smoot say anything? That's it, it's the director's fault.

But it's a good movie.

I'm just gonna quit talking about it. I have nothing meaningful to say anyway, except for the fact that I hope my brain will recover from this experience... some time soon.

So bad it's................awful

[samax_89 · 1/10 · 29 October 2006]

A total and utter travesty of a movie.'Dark power'is the kind of film even troma would be embarrassed to release.The script,direction,acting and action sequence's are so dire as to be almost painful to watch and one cant help thinking that it's mere 75 minute running time could have been better spent. The above reviewer must be related to the director as that's the only reason i can see for his/her appraisal of this rubbish,some might call it b-movie fun or 'so bad it's good' just to excuse there enjoyment of it,but when the lead actor ( and most experienced cast member) cant deliver his lines convincingly you know you've got a very,very bad movie.Avoid at all costs.

Irritating people are saved by grandpa with a whip

[BigSquirrel · 1/10 · 5 November 2005]

This film started off really tense when a poor young boy is set upon by a pack of savage dogs. After a tense chase he is saved by said grandpa with magic whip.

We are then introduced to a string of annoying house mates, including one tart who is always half dressed. During this stage the film heightens tension with strange "plinky plinky" background noises that had me on the edge of my seat.

I stopped paying attention for a while but when I looked back on the screen there where weird creature type things going around grunting and killing. One word of advice if you are ever trapped in your home by some nutter - get some cardboard boxes and a tray.

Although we did skip half the film, because it was totally non interesting or memorable, we are now at the stunning conclusion, the last surviving creature thing fights a "Whip Duel" with grandpa and his magic whip. I wont say what happens here, but I can say the whip battle is full of tension, with aerial fights, split level fights and all manner of drama.

I am now going to shove this film through the door of a neighbour i don't like.

Hey, baby, wanna see my whip?

[blurnieghey · 5/10 · 20 November 2021]

There's no use belaboring all that's wrong with this movie, as it is pretty much everything and other reviewers have already done so. Instead, I want to champion this mess as it strikes points in the entertainment department, which is what counts. And the "Toltecs" don't really look that bad-not that good, but not that bad or at least about as good as Neon Maniacs. The attempts at humor are definitely the worst thing about it, though, as generally horror and comedy are a tough mix and hardly anyone ever gets it right. A nice study in 80's interior decorating, as well.

"No more magic. No more hocus pokus."

[lost-in-limbo · 5/10 · 28 February 2015]

You like a good time with a whip? Look no further than the cheesy, but charm-ridden 80s horror "The Dark Power". What is an interesting set-up (the story's background is well-devised), eventually makes way to its ridiculous writing, low-brow dialogues and goofy, lightweight execution with a lot whip-cracking and wise-cracks ("Feel my whip you son of a b!tch") thanks to legendary B-western star Lash La Rue. Still this low- budget regional horror was lot more entertaining than it deserved to be… maybe more so unintentional, but entertaining nonetheless. Just listen to what comes out of these character's mouths… its rib-tickling (especially from the red-neck woman)… but it doesn't break loose until a good hour when our four evil Toltec zombie sorcerers come to terrorise some college coeds. For the first hour we got to listen to boring, if exaggerated exchanges, whip talk and numerous legends and theories involving the house on Totem Hill where the girls have moved into. At least you got an attractive buxom cast in Anna Lane Tatum, Mary Dalton & Cynthia Bailey. Then it turns crazy with plenty of hysterical screaming and "Benny Hill" chases, as now I don't know what was going on. You can see were most of the money went to though, as the effects are actually well staged and there is one very memorable face-lift. Too bad these zombie sorcerers looked and acted rather stooge-like, than anything truly threatening. Even watching La Rue go up against one of these sorcerers with his whip -- made out of materials from the four corners of the world was a battle of epic proportions. Watch as these two standoff as they go ahead whipping each other in turns, one a pure amateur while the other a master. Crack that whip! It was hard to tell if director/writer Phil Smoot was trying to be funny or not, but this slapdash effort is playful enough. Now that music score was like something out of an old-fashion western film… it even sounded like if someone's mobile was going off.

Night of the Toltec Idiots

[lovecraft231 · 1/10 · 9 August 2008]

When a group of dumb kids (including an unlikable. racist bitch) stay at an old house, it awakens four murderous Toltec spirits. Can Lash La Rue save the day? Will you be able to watch until the end due to the horrible comedy on display.

"The Dark Power" is the kind of really bad horror/comedy hybrid Troma used to release regularly. Thing is, they didn't. release this. That doesn't excuse the whole thing, as it has a dreadful synthesizer score (including bad attempts at Native American music and even worse "comedy" music), bad make up effects (basically Halloween masks), and atrocious acting (Ok, the fat guy was alright, though everyone else is terrible, and La Rue, a Western movie vet, seems embarrassed to be there-not that I blame him really.)

The worst thing though, is the comedy aspects. Sure, dumb teens is one thing, but when the movie keeps talking about the Toltec spirits as if they are the ultimate evil, only for them to turn out to be horribly annoying, bumbling fools, all hope is dashed. Combining horror and comedy takes at least some skill. There is no skill on display here, as it all is just stupid, and not "so dumb it's fun" either. I mean "smoking pot and listening to bad Punk Rock aren't I dumb" dumb.

Not even a decent ripped off face and a chick in little clothing can save this disaster. Terrible movie, and not even worth a rental.

Offbeat and Compelling 80's Indie Horror

[Steve_Nyland · 8/10 · 11 August 2006]

I must say that I am an *INSTANT* fan of DARK POWER, an EVIL DEAD inspired bit of regionally produced horror hokum masquerading as a teen schlock craptacular. But as usual with medium to low budget movies that have not been messed around with by a studio looking to reap a profit there is more to this than may first meet the eye. The film's plot concerns itself with a group of genuinely unlikeable morons who move into a house formerly owned by a descendant of "Toltec and Aztec" shamans that is on the site of a former burial ground, or repository of ancient Native American artifacts. Offense is given to the tribal gods when one of the losers turns out to be a scab who leaves the seat up when taking a leak, invites his pathetic friends over for a beer party, and his snot rag sister starts giving the black chick in the movie racist trash. Either that or those gods are just being nasty for the hell of it.

It moves quickly: There is a local sheriff with some sort of mystical whip played by B-movie Western Whip King Lash La Rue, maniacal doggies (more like poochies: they are cute for killer wild dogs) who attack local fat kids wandering through the woods, a fat handyman dressed up like Meatloaf who's kid manages to blow up his truck, the losers run out of beer, and then out of nowhere come four re-incarnated Aztec warriors dressed up in castoff K-Mart hockey gear who butcher everyone in the house to pay them back for not having any Cheez-Whiz. In other words this is one of those movies made for people with really short attention spans that does not rely on plot to get it's message across, which is that Injun ghost warriors are nasty, mean, and kill people in surprisingly creative manners. My favorite was the chick who gets an arrow right between the eyes, but there are varieties of carnage that will likely please any hacker fan -- though be advised that DARK POWER's budget amounted to about one good semester at graduate school and the effects may not please fans of the animated computer cartoon horror hits of today, which genuinely suck compared to imaginative, well-meaning and bankrupt projects such as this. A sub-plot involving a foxy local reporter's inappropriate flirtations with the local teen book nerd doesn't go anywhere, but there's plenty of offbeat carnage, some enjoyable T&A, plenty of beer for everyone, and some appropriately tasteless humor that is funny for all the wrong reasons. This movie is an applied study in poor taste, but somehow it works.

The film also throws a few curve balls at viewers with some unexpected social commentary, such as the scene where one of the Injun Zombies decides to sample some of the snack food, condiments and booze stacked up in the kitchen. Then there is the scene where one of the losers from the beer party is being massacred and the snot-rag sister comes out of the bathroom clad in only a towel screaming at the morons to KEEP IT DOWN! I also liked the racial dynamic with the black girl, who sort of becomes one of the heroes and who's tolerance of the white trash (one of them even has a Confederate flag hung prominently in his room: cute) crackers is nothing short of admirable. The film is also strangely comfortable with it's Regional Horror look & nature, and we may have coined a new term here.

REGIONAL HORROR: Low budget, semi or outright independent thrillers from the 1970s - 1980s filmed in places like Miami, Omaha, Richmond, and St. Louis that eschewed gloss for a kind of droll wallowing in everyday suburbia, featuring everyday plain Jane actors who are cast for their ordinariness rather than traits attributable to a manufactured freak like Tom Cruise or Angelina Jolie that has no identity outside of their industry. These are everyday people, non-actors with maybe some community theater experience, called up by a director who needed a cast for a movie, offered a couple hundred dollars for a few day's shootings and usually got more than they're money's worth when compared to the baloney performances of someone like Mr. Cruise. Regional Horror features existing locations as sets like people's homes, their backyards, maybe a stretch of woods on public land, and is usually comprised of images & scenes that blue collar slobs like ourselves would otherwise see every day of our lives.

The ultimate example would probably be CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (or NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, for that matter) but see also HOUSE OF THE DEAD/THE ALIEN ZONE, KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, FIEND, DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, DON'T GO IN THE WOODS ALONE and other movies with the word DON'T in their title, and I would rank DARK POWER right up there with any of those as a movie that amounted to more than the sum of it's parts, and turned out far, far better than it probably had to.

8/10, and I mean it.

Great B Movie Fun!

[writersinmotion · 7/10 · 19 February 2005]

I had a blast watching this B movie concoction of angry Indians, sorority girls, and of course the whip action of Lash LaRue. The production values of the film add to the experience of creating that unique feeling that only a low-budget indie with a lot of passion behind it can bring. I believe this is a second film for director Phil Smoot, Alien Outlaw being the other. I think this film was shot in North Carolina. It has that feel to it, sort of like the films shot in Texas having their own look. It looks like 16mm or super16, but the transfer is of good quality. The sound mix, being from 16mm, is pretty good. Overall, i would recommend this film for cult film addicts. The sorority girl being chased through the tall grass is worth the purchase alone.

I hated the two siblings in this film!

[LasKeepsItReal · 5/10 · 2 March 2015]

I heard about and saw The Dark Power film today as it seemed to be a little different from other horror films that were produced around the mid 1980's.

Here is my review which shall contain some spoilers throughout!

The Dark Power is set in what seems like southern America and in a location where four American Indians have died many centuries before. A reporter and her cameraman are conjuring up a story for their college project about the history of the area and the curse that it has left behind along with some support from the local ranger Girard.

A house where the Indians known as Toltec sorcerers where laid to rest has been built over the same area. A group of sorority girls decide to rent out the house whilst carrying out their studies at a cheap price.

Out of the four girls whilst Beth gets a recommendation from reporter Mary her very annoying friend Lynn constantly interrupts their conversation. When Beth and Lynn get to the house and meet up with their other friend Susan and it is not until Lynn meets the fourth girl Tammie, the only black girl we are further annoyed by her outspoken racist and spiteful behaviour. I have to say Lynn's character was probably the most racist one I have ever seen in a horror film although the way the the other girls respond to her is with maturity and dignity.

Lynn then plans to pester her enemy Tammie once more by inviting her equally annoying and irrelevant brother Craig to stay at the house and have a party with his friends. When night falls the evil sorcerers rise from the ground and terrorise the sorority girls, Craig and his friends. The ranger Girard arrives at the house to help put an end to all the havoc.

I know this film is marketed as a horror film but i didn't really feel as though it was one for the most part it was like a drama mixed with some horror, a little blood and then became quite funny or even silly towards the end. I think the film lost any initial serious tone it had by the half way point however the killers did do some interestingly random things that were not always intentional and were curious as to some of the decisions they would make.

It was worth the watch for something out of the ordinary and to see what happens to two very unlikeable characters being the brother and sister Craig and Lynn!

I would rate this film 5 out of 10.

Ultra cheesy fun!

[m_deathbringer · 17 October 2004]

Okay, this is a mid-80's movie about the spirits of the dead returning to have their revenge on the living. So you pretty much expect cheesy-looking zombies who have no consistency in their behaviour, a bunch of stupid, screaming college students who are only there as splat-fodder, leaving the (mildly) more likable ones behind to be saved in the nick of time by a hugely unlikely hero, who utters the line "I'm getting too old for this" at least once. You also expect some pretty gory moments where hands and heads come off and blood stains the grass, and cringe-worthy dialogue like "Die, you corpse!"...and, you get it with this movie XD.

The only real complaint is that the Zombies are not really zombies, they are just menacing undead creatures who run around with sharp weapons (well, two of them do, the other two just run around and fumble at their victims while making dubbed grunt/moan noises) and kill people. This is a pretty good splatter movie to kill a hour or so with i suppose. You even see some titties!, and it features a similar racial theme to "Night of the living dead", except handled much more clumsily, with all the subtlety you would expect from an 80's splatter flick. Great viewing all round, but don't pay more than £6!

Tally (yeah, i decided to incorporate this in all my reviews): Sex: 1/10, Drugs: 0/10, Rock 'n roll: 2/10, Zombies: 7/10, Classic cars: 0/10, Splatter: 6/10

Cheesy as hell but fun

[tim-65065 · 2/10 · 18 November 2019]

I was actually an extra in this movie in several scenes. As a 15 year old was a blast and experience. Got to watch some of the nude scenes filmed..great experience. :-P

Quite a ride!!

[jeffreygunn · 2/10 · 7 October 2019]

I'm afraid I had a really difficult time it rooting for the monsters in this one. Have to love a movie that has a scene where a fat slob farts to gross out his nephew. Yeah, I suppose that is technically a spoiler. Classic cinema it is.

If it was not for the cute girls I would have given it a one.

[Aaron1375 · 2/10 · 7 April 2020]

Take a film, throw in some girls and undead Indians and make a horror and I am sure most people would not have come up with this given the opportunity. It is basically one of those horror films that also tries to be comedy, but the comedy is not funny and the horror is not scary and you end up with a lot of talking. Seriously, there was a scene with a reporter and this young man that went absolutely nowhere in the film as neither figured into the actual scenes involving the killer Indians. Oh, and make sure to add a famed character actor with a whip to give the movie a decidedly odd tone.

The story has an Indian dying at the beginning of the film and then we get a boy running into the woods where he is assailed by the neighborhood dogs and then saved by whip master Lash LaRue! This scene does nothing other than establish Lash is in this film and he is going to whip the hell out of things! Somehow the film then turns to girls needing a place to stay and two girls who obviously hate each other decide to become roommates, one invites an African American to also live at the place and the other friend is apparently very racist so she gets revenge by inviting her horrible brother to live with them and then Lash, a reporter and a young man who ends up not having anything to do with the final portion of the film talk and you are left wondering, "Is this a horror movie?" Finally, we have the dead rising and they look bad and they go on the attack and the ending cannot come quick enough.

The only redeeming part of the film is the cute girl who is always out of her pants and the girl naked in the tub who I have have no idea who it was. She almost looked like the reporter. The cast is bad, the monsters look bad and the gore is bad. The worst thing about the film though is the girls' screams as they become incredibly annoying especially the racist one who I was so happy to see killed!

So, this film is not good...not good at all. Horror movies can be done on the cheap, but when you have to use horrible obvious masks on your undead monsters, you may as well not make a movie to begin with. The odd shifts in humor also take this film down several pegs as you cannot be scared when one of the Indian zombies simply twirls his ax around and messes up and another one sits at the kitchen table drinking. The final scene with Lash fighting the remaining Indian with a whip was just boring and went on way too long and nothing was sweeter than seeing them credits roll!

"there's the old man......" "yeah, those were noisy feeesh".

[pallisrs · 8/10 · 19 May 2008]

first off i love this film. You know when a film is so unbelievably bad but yet you just can't turn it off as you wonder how or why it was ever made... "the dark power" is like that but worse, with many hilarious moments thrown in.

Basic plot is that a bunch of schoolkids move into a house on an ancient Indian toltec burial site, only to have a few of the toltec zombies to come out the ground and terrorise them during the night for no other reason than it just happens to be "evil day". (dont ask). This then becomes a fight for survival featuring that elderly western actor lash larue who appears out of nowhere, brandishing his trademark whip and some godawful one-liners to save the teens from certain death!

Along the way we experience horrendous editing, dialogue which needs rewinding at least ten times and moments of "did he just say that??", some hideous special effects, a lot of 80s synth music, random scenes that don't make any sense and probably the worst collection of actors EVER seen.

The guiltiest of all pleasures, you will either absolutely hate "the dark power" for being utterly, utterly rubbish, or you will revel in it's ineptness and sheer incompetence, cheering on the hapless fools who dared to shame themselves forever by starring in this.... Of course i'm in the latter camp. So if you can get a cheap copy of this, have a few beers (or something stronger!) and cheer on mr larue as he shouts "feeeeel my whip!"

I cannot recommend this film enough. Arguably one of the finest "trash cinema" has to offer.

Often annoying,but enjoyable slapstick slasher.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 6/10 · 12 March 2009]

A group of unsuspecting college coeds move into the house on Totem Hill,a cursed place where four Toltec Sorcerers buried themselves hundreds of years ago-alive and still breathing!On the coming of the Evil Days,the ancient demons arise to feed on the living.Now only one old Ranger with a whip played by western veteran Lash LaRue-fashioned out of materials from the four quarters of the world-stands between the girls and the mystical zombies from the past."The Dark Power" is clearly Phil Smoot's answer to Raimi's "The Evil Dead" with an isolated house,resurrected bloodthirsty demons and lots of POV camera-work in the woods.What surprised me the most are the racist remarks of several characters.The Confederate flag also pops up with alarming frequency.The four Indian monsters are fun to watch and there is a bit of gore including the scene where a man's head is torn apart.Lash LaRue is great with a non-sexual whip action.It's really a shame that the first 45 minutes are so criminally boring.A generous 6 out of 10.

LASH LARUE has great swan song !

[guestar57 · 7/10 · 22 March 2001]

DARK POWER is very kewl,cheesy good fun.This reminds me of Saturday mornings of my youth,cartoons like Lash Larue(oops,he lived) were great escape. DP brings that back to my soul.Heard Phil Smoot kind of made sequel called Alien Outlaw,but only released it to Europe...Hmm.

If a zombie comes a long/You must whip it.

[jimevarts · 30 January 2015]

The "hero" of this movie is an 80-year-old park ranger who solves all problems by cracking a whip. The bad guys are a group of four Toltec zombies wearing hilarious masks. Except one. One of them looks like a party dude who does nothing but skillfully flip tomahawks in his hands.

Spoiler alert (this movie was already pretty spoilt, though):

The "plot" is four thirtysomething college girls rent a house together. The house has no phone and they don't have cars. Said house is located on a plot of land where some Toltec wizards are buried. They come to life and attack* the girls. Eventually, the girls kill 3 of them, and the fourth one ends up having a whip-off with the 80-year-old park ranger, which ends when the ranger whips the zombie's head off. *Attack = stand near them and shake and make grunting sounds while the girls scream

50% of the move is people complaining repeatedly and taking things that are neatly arranged and tossing them around. 25% is people explaining things to each other so the audience knows what's going on. The other 25% is comical chasing, grunting, and screaming. And whip-cracking. Dear Lord, the whip-cracking!

Along the way, the zombies kill a few guys and two of the girls. That sentence is actually more exciting and scary than the actual death scenes. Not to mention once the characters are killed, you completely forget they ever existed.

I put this movie somewhere above Suburban Sasquatch and below Birdemic in cinematic quality, plot, and writing.

'The Dark Power' (1985)

[mfnmbvp · 6/10 · 21 July 2012]

The beginning title cards make 'The Dark Power' look like it might be a well-made nostalgic campy horror film, but after the first ten or so minutes, one will struggle with the film for a while, lying in wait for the actual story to unfold itself. Alas, there isn't really any very good excuse for a plot to be found here. Instead, just classic 80's camp filled with scantily-clad girls the audience wishes would get naked (but don't, save for one scene), and a bunch of oblivious wops who the audience begs the filmmakers to kill off immediately, but instead lie around throwing empty beer cans and smoking cigarettes.

This isn't to say that the film itself is bad, our characters are just pretty terrible, typical non-actors, but their dialogue at times seems to transcend their acting abilities. The infamous Lash La Rue who gets everyone excited about this film hardly makes an appearance at all, but is noteworthy as producer. He comes in at the end, complete with trademark 1950's Western movie soundtrack.

This is a sometimes fun amateur B-flick for damn sure, and reminds me of other well-made crap films I have seen in recent times such as 'Winterbeast', 'Zaat', and 'The Boogens'. Enjoyable enough for those with the attention span to tolerate generally well-made awful films. And if you are still commenting to yourself about the hokey costumes, trust me, there is worse out there.

Lots of Budweiser references, maybe have a few of those and the film won't seem like 78 minutes of intense bass and muddled dialogue. Definitely worth the watch for bad film geeks.

THE DARK POWER -----6/10.