Manor of Darkness
Her mother unwell and in denial about the urgency of her condition, Laura is trying to help her but feels she is not being given the support she needs by her brother Chris; needing significant amounts of cash quickly for surgery abroad, working at a café is not going to cut it, but while Chris has bigger ideas his plan is not guaranteed and is far from above board, a robbery at a mansion once run as a guest house for the idle rich.
The owner later prosecuted for theft from his customers, not all the property was recovered, Chris believing an item of significant value is still somewhere in the house, the new owner is seeking a team to make a film about the history of the house, and with Chris presenting himself as a director alongside Laura, girlfriend Lisa and new recruit Andy as his crew he hopes to locate the object during the shoot, the police, victims, insurers or any other interested parties presumably never having tried to find it before.
Written, directed, shot and edited by Blake Ridder who also makes a small appearance in the final scenes, he reunites many of the cast from his debut feature Help, Louis James as inept cat burglar Chris, wandering around the house of someone he knows without gloves or mask but with the lights on, Sarah Alexandra Marks as Lisa, Stuart Wolfe-Murray as Lucas, current owner of the Manor of Darkness, and Amy Jim as Ms Wong, her home conspicuously large for someone on a teacher’s salary and target of Chris’ former misdeeds.
Joined by Kim Spearman as Laura and Rui Shang as pickpocket Andy, he is first observed by Chris stealing a phone from a drunk woman in the wine bar where he and Lisa were casually discussing their upcoming crime, an action which prompted Chris to immediately recognise his professionalism and talent as a thief and invite him to join the gang, as clumsy and irrational a decision as anything else to be found wandering the corridors of the Manor of Darkness.
Ridder the author of How I Made 52 Films in 3 Years, abandoning any notion of quality control would seem to be the key, the film unravelling like a rushed first draft concept, with traumatic back stories of alcoholic parents and sad divorces announced with the subtlety of the foreshadowing blood-drenched kitchen nightmare scene and the spooky figures banging on the café window after closing time even before the sinister trunk in the basement which unleashes “pure evil” when the lid is opened.
Lucas with a predisposition to stabbing people with as little thought as Chris shoots people when things don’t go to his slim plan, the house is a trap, a Groundhog Day riddle where those inside are doomed to repeat scenes which do not warrant repeating, the cast doing their valiant best with bland dialogue which fails to ground the Twilight Zone shenanigans and make the horror real, Andy’s suggestion of getting naked as a defence apparently as valid an idea as anything else.
Manor of Darkness will be on US digital platforms from Tuesday 9th December
