Crazy Eights is the moodier piece in this year’s After Dark Horrorfest collection. It plays on setting a pace and keeping it up until its final moments. It delivers a great ghost story that asks the question: is it easier to choose guilt or redemption? The characters however, fail to bring about any believability.
Crazy Eights starts off like Lawrence Kasdan’s The Big Chill. Old friends reunite for a funeral. Brief glimpses are shown of their lives but the horror twist enters when they all have bizarre nightmares that feel real. Reading their friend’s will they learn he wishes them to find their childhood time capsule and embark on journey to discover what they have lost.
After they find their old time capsule they discover a horrifying secret. Inside the old trunk they used are the skeletal remains of a young girl. No one knows who it is or how she would have gotten in there. Running scared they leave the body and get lost getting back to civilization. Seeing what they believe to be a young woman running up the road they follow her to an old abandoned institution. From this point on the cast falls into many horror cliché’s such as falling down and getting hurt, being separated from the group and learning that there is a connection to them and this place. All of which works for the film but it is all too easy and this is where Crazy Eights falls to pieces.
All of these adults were children in this institution years ago. They have no memory and only fake ones covering up their time there. Jennifer (Dina Meyer) is a criminal psychologist, Brent (Frank Whaley) a lawyer and Lyle (George Newbern) is a priest. All who are extremely well educated people who lack the intelligence to find their way out of this bizarre decrepit institution. Sure, if they find their way out there is no story but if you have to concede that after their friends start dying one by one after they break off from the group someone in this college educated crowd would go, “don’t go out there alone” and then follow through. They don’t and it becomes a bizarre pecking order of who will die and how long they will live based on their billing.
This lack of intelligent character writing is in juxtaposition to the horror in Crazy Eights. The scares in this film deliver. These are not overly gory scares. The blood does not flow like a river. They come in short subtle bursts that trick the mind and get the adrenaline pumping. There are a few relatively gruesome scares but they are likened to what one would see in a nightmare. Quick, horrific and rewindable scares are the gems of this movie. The inane swearing and run of the mouth jitters become boring, dull and ruin what is at times really scary.
Crazy Eights is a great film for those that truly love the terrifying thrill of horror movies. A must see for all would be film makers who wish to learn the craft of a truly good scare. It is sad that its dialogue and story hinder it so.
Special Features:
The Special Features were not present for review.
Tim Janson and Robert Trate will be bringing all 8 Films To Die For to Mania. Please check the site everyday for continuing coverage of After Dark’s Horrorfest.
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