Watch The Darkening For Free

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

Well to start this off...do NOT rent,films. The Black Gate is just a poor attempt at film making. Mesa is simply an awful director. Jeff Rectum spits out a dismal performance as "Scott" which reflects the past and present state of his career; no surprises there. What's truly surprising is the fact that the Black Gate is actually great entertainment. Well, that is if you love laughing at awful movies and hilarious "scary" scenes like my friends and I do. Of course, I'm still giving it a 1/10 because it's most likely the worst movie I've ever seen. All that being said, rent the movie or buy it off ebay for ~1 US dollar (yea, I'm serious) if you love cackling at awful actors and dreadful script writing.I've viewed the film twice now and here are my picks for "Most Classic, Awful, Black Gate Scene(s)":1) The beautiful shots of the ocean that are the only quality thing about the movie, which makes them awful. Speculation: 47% of the movie budget was spent getting such a vast array of oceanic shots. 2) The "Clown in the Attic" scene..."NO BATTERIES!" 3) Richard Locke's scenes, especially the one where he appears in a 1 second flashback and shouts "Gyahh!!!" 4) "Ghost Kiss"...self explanatory... 5) The sequence where the old caretaker is followed BY NOTHING and falls off a cliff because of NOTHING. 6) And finally (this Richard Locke scene deserves a number of its own) the scene where Richard Locke appears and runs up to Scott. Instead of striking him in any vital area, Locke decides he will just scratch at Scott's arm while wheezing "Ehhya! Ehhya! Ehhya!". Classic.A message to anyone who has viewed the movie before: Any of you realize how poorly the time line in the movie fits together? If not re watch it. Almost every other scene is Justin sleeping. One poorly thought out sequence that comes to mind is the caretaker segment. I leave it to you all to figure out what's wrong with everything...it's not hard...Brooks knows what I'm talking about... :)

Unless you're the type, like my sister and I are, that likes to watch bad movies to laugh at, stay far away from this movie.To begin with, the acting is horrible. But, then again, how can you convincingly kiss a ghost? She's dead, get over it! My favorite part was Richard's demonic growl. Now that inspires fear (maybe for small children and those weak of heart, but even then...).Why hide the date of the film? To me, that seemed strange, to make it seem like a new movie, especially when the clothes and hairstyles are so dated.I gave this movie a 2/10 just because it made me laugh.

Rebecca (Rebecca Kyler Downs) has sank her every dollar into a lovely bed & breakfast overlooking the sea on the California coast. Unfortunately for her although ideal, the place doesn't yield much in the way of customers because strange things occur and the guests don't usually last past a few hours. Cue up the ghost hunters Scott and Justin who are going to get to the bottom of the satanic ballyhoo going on."The Black Gate" is a potentially interesting film that echoes several others (The Uninvited. The Amityville Horror, etc.) but it really doesn't develop anything beyond the occasional "boo scare". The acting is decent but bland. No stand-outs due mostly to a under developed script and minor direction. You would think that with the close confines of the place that they could generate some tension but alas that is not the case. The music track doesn't help much either when most of the time it seems to disappear along with your interest.

Black Gate (aka The Darkening) is one of two thematically similar films I just watched back to back (the other being Devil's Harvest, 2003) that owe a strong debt to the classic "seaside haunted house films", ala Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), Lewis Allen's The Uninvited (1944) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz' The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947). They both mix a lot of semi-Satanic mythology with their relatively more hyperactive, modernized styles. Unfortunately, although Black Gate has promise, and there are positive elements, this was the bad film of the two, ending up with a 6, the equivalent of a "D" letter grade for me.Rebecca Lacey (Rebecca Kyler Downs--her character's name seems like it should be an homage to Hitchcock's Rebecca, but as that's her real name, too, it might just be a coincidence) owns a struggling Bed & Breakfast on the California coast. It's struggling because it's haunted. Rebecca can barely get guests to stay for a few hours. As the film opens, we see an elderly couple experiencing poltergeist-like events, including a face stretching out of the wall similar to the famous poster/DVD cover art of Peter Jackson's The Frighteners (1996). They run out, never to be seen again.Rebecca then calls in Scott Griffin (Jeff Rector) and his photographer assistant Justin Reid (George Saunders). Griffin is a self-styled "ghost chaser" who has written a book entitled Unknown Realms: A Psychic's View of Hauntings. Rebecca hopes he can solve her problem. While staying at the Bed & Breakfast, exploring and experiencing some events more typical of a haunting, Griffin comes across some occult items, including a box that's a gateway to a hell dimension--the titular Black Gate.The chief problem with Black Gate seems to be the script by John Jones and Victoria Parker. That was disappointing to me, because although this may have been Parker's first film, Jones had previously penned Amityville 4 (aka Amityville: The Evil Escapes, 1989), which I loved, and Amityville 6 (aka Amityville 1992: It's About Time), which I haven't seen for some time, but I remember liking.Here, the backstory is far too convoluted, which saps it of impact, and there are far too many non-sequiturs, such as the ridiculous romance that blossoms between Justin, who is a committed skeptic, and a female ghost, Katherine (Red Montgomery). The story lacks a definite arc--it feels more like a set of arbitrary events. The script is short, and the dénouement is way too long, but the ending is also somewhat abrupt and inexplicable. Additionally, the "ghost buster" functions of Scott and Justin are laughably shallow and amateurish, especially in light of the activities of groups like The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), as portrayed in the excellent Sci-Fi Channel show "Ghost Hunters" (2004). Admittedly, some of these problems may have been due to director William Mesa (who has an extensive, impressive background in visual effects with his company Flash Film Works), but they seem like flaws in the script to me.But Black Gate also has a number of admirable elements. The basic gist of the story has potential. Especially by referencing films like Rebecca and The Amityville Horror (1979), the groundwork for an effective haunted house flick is already extant, and the occult background material could have been intriguing. The performances aren't bad considering what the cast had to work with. Downs and Lyndis Durwin, as Maggie Stewart, were actually good, although Durwin doesn't have a very big part. There are some nice external shots of the sea, and I loved the surrealistic artificiality of the establishing shots of the house--Mesa created nice composite shots of the house with computer generated skies and geographic features in the background--but those are few and far between. However, the interiors left much to be desired, with their plain, stark white walls reflecting the blandness of the events that transpire. The cinematography is decent to good, but the extremely low budget that Mesa apparently had to work with does not allow him to excel at his niche--special effects. The effects in the film tend to have all the panache and impact of the average ghost scene on a weekday afternoon soap opera, which unfortunately carries over to the atmosphere of the film at large.