There Are Worse Things Than Being Dead…
Starring: Gary Daniels, Ben Shockley, Steven Elliott, Kate Thurlwell, Alice Grant, Tina Barnes, Alex Walker, Ian Cullen, Sophie Holland
Director: Frank Falco
2008 | 101 Minutes | Rated R
“You’re about two seconds away from getting my boot up your ass and that’s just because I’m in a good fucking mood.” – Darryl Van Dyke
The only reason I am reviewing this steaming pile of baby diaper smelling sediment is because of Gary Daniels involvement. Dark Secrets aka Cold Earth really isn’t an action movie. More of a horror/mystery/drama. And Gary Daniels is not even a main character.
When the daughter of a celebrity couple, Darryl (Gary Daniels) & Lori Van Dyke is kidnapped two detectives race to find her. It appears to be the work of a serial killer who has struck twice before. The truth is much more terrifying.
The movie follows a couple of detectives trying to find the little girl. For some reason they are looking in abandoned houses and the like though. One detective has visions of the young girl who is trying to reach out to him.
Then every once in a while we check in with Gary Daniels’ race car driving dad character, Darryl, who doesn’t seem to care a whole ton that his daughter is missing and may have been murdered by a serial killer. The race must go on.
The acting is horrible, especially whoever played Lori Van Dyke who is supposed to be a soap opera star. Her movie acting is below soap opera quality.
If you want to see how not to film convincing detective work this is it. The one detective (I completely lost track of which was which) pulls a girl out of an abandoned house, announces to his partner her name and then we never come back to it. This event has nothing to do with the entire rest of the film. On top of that their office looks to be about the size of the storage closet that Michael Scott Paper Company was run out of for a few episodes of The Office.
Film quality looks like a high school project. Backgrounds are bright and washed out and in general it looks like it was shot with a camera that I could pick up at the pawn shop I buy my DVDs at.
You might wonder why I would feel the need to review Dark Secrets when there are so many other, much better Gary Daniels movies waiting to be reviewed here. The answer is twofold. #1 – I found it on DVD cheap and thought it looked decent. #2 – I watched it and it wasn’t decent. I might as well post a review if for no other reason than to warn the world to stay away. As the tag line states… There are things than being dead… like watching this movie again.
Action Movie Fanatix 