Day: 31 Film: Dark Windows
Type: Revenge
Country: Norway / USA Year: 2023
Writer: Ulvrik Kraft
Director: Alex Herron
Rating: 7.3 / 10
If you like slow burn style horror films then Dark Windows is one for you – it features all of the classics, a cabin in the middle of nowhere, a creepy figure in the background of a few shots and some brutal violence. Although it doesn’t reinvent the wheel – it doesn’t need to, it’s a solid horror that shocks and unnerves without being too wild or unpredictable.
Three friends decide to take a trip out to their family holiday home in the countryside after the death of their friend (Ali) from a car crash that they were all involved in. Traumatised from the event and laden with both survivors guilt and remorse from their involvement in the crash itself, they aren’t exactly in high-spirits, but do their best to revert to normality and use the trip as a way to heal amongst eachother. But not everyone is happy for them to continue with their lives as normal. Some people think they should pay for their actions on that fateful evening – and one person in particular, will do everything they can to keep Ali at the forefront of their minds.
This isn’t a horror jam-packed with action or frightening scenes, it’s more a grief-filled drama with a horrific spin. The uneasy tension remains throughout – whether it’s the uncomfortable nature of Tilly (Anna Bullard) being accosted at the funeral, or the creepy feeling that you are being watched in an empty house with nothing but darkness outside. It’s the simplistic yet effective atmosphere that they create that lingers throughout and ensures a genuinely unnerving experience for the viewer. The friends are all relatively generic characters – Peter (Rory Alexander) is an alcoholic just as his father was, and Monica (Annie Hamilton) just wants to forget it all and move on, Tilly is seemingly the only one that is strongly effected by the events from that night.
The opening scene to the film is a flashforward to a moment in the home while the teens are being terrorised – automatically setting the tone for the revenge fueled storyline that lies ahead, helping to intrigue the audience right from the start. The friends have been in the house for a few nights before things really start ramping up. While there are a few creepy moments of potential shadows in the background and windows being opened, it’s only in the final third of the film that everything gets taken up a notch. A masked man appears at the house – and with no signal to call the police, and the engine being removed from their car means there is only one thing left to do – fight to survive.
From here on out, the film increases its pace and drumming home its message before the relatively abrupt ending. It neatly explains the motives behind the masked man, after some unique, brief but intense torture scenes and leaves the viewers with no unanswered questions or unexplained scenes. This is simple, straightforward and suspenseful and although it is quite easy to figure out the various whats, whys and who’s – it doesn’t detract it from being a solid horror that ticks the required boxes.
The incredible Unrestricted View Horror Film Festival is now in it’s 8th year – a brilliant festival for scary movie fans with a curated collection of some of the best independent horror features, shorts & web series. The screenings take place mainly at the wonderful Hen & Chickens Theatre, with a selection of shorts also being shown at Screen on the Green.
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