“Beneath the Dark” Movie Review

Release Date: November 5, 2010
Directed by: Chad Feehan
Runtime: 102 minutes
Rating: R

Paul (Josh Stewart, “The Collector”) and his girlfriend Adrienne (Jamie Lyn-Sigler, “Dark Ride”) are on a trip to see one his former fraternity brothers get married. After Adrienne gets a little too frisky in the car and nearly causes him to wreck, he decides to take a break and check into a hotel for the night. That’s when things get a little weird.

The guy running the hotel, Frank (Chris Browning) seems a little off. He keeps flashing back to his wife Sandy (Angela Featherstone, “Soul Survivors”) and the life they once led. Meanwhile, Adrienne gets pissed at Paul for not having sex with her, and Paul keeps seeing weird things in the hotel room that remind him of something that happened in the past. Naturally, the two worlds of these four characters are connected, and you have to be blind not to see it coming.

First of all, do not read the Netflix description before you watch this movie. I did, and it was nothing at all like the film. Netflix says they check into a hotel and hear whispers in the walls talking about their secrets, which isn’t true. Paul has a secret, but Adrienne is pretty much an innocent bystander.

I really wanted to like “Beneath the Dark,” but I have to admit that I have no idea what was going on most of the time. There are several different stories going on here. Paul and Adrienne are in the present, Sandy and Frank are in the present, Sandy and Paul are in the past, and Sandy and Frank are in the past. There is way too much to keep track of, especially when the movie starts jumping around.

I pretty much knew from the very beginning how the movie would end, but I kept watching it in the hopes that it would turn out differently. It basically has the type of ending that you’ve seen dozens of time, and I ended up feeling really disappointed.

Featherstone looks like she’s sleepwalking through most of the movie, while Sigler plays the slightly bitchy girl once again. I feel like every time I see her in a horror film, she’s playing a girl who is supposed to be the girl next door but she’s so bitchy that I just want her to go away. While “Beneath the Dark” is far from the worst film I’ve ever seen, it’s nowhere near the best.