Dark Ride

I liked this slasher from the Afterdark Horrorfest. Not only does Dark Ride have a pretty cool premise, it also has some nice attention to detail, spooky settings, and a pretty good cast.

The plot is basically about these college students who want to go on Spring Break! WHOA YEAH WHOOO! Yet at a gas station they find a poster for this new old attraction, the Dark Ride, which has just opened up after 20 years of being closed. Turns out it was closed because a maniac killed a few (dozen) people in there, but the kids don't know that.

The characters are pretty cookie cutter and there's only enough of a plot for the viewer to get the jist of why these kids are dying. In the end, it's pretty ambiguous as to motivations, but really, most slashers have sucky plots/scripts anyway.

The ride looks pretty sweet. It looks like Frightfest at one of those amusement parks, and I would love to live in a house like that. Things pop out at the characters all the turn, which means that things pop out of the audience all the time, which means a lot of BOOO-scares for everyone. I really liked the settting, the atmosphere makes everything dark and mysterious and you don't normally know when any of the puppets will pop out at you.

The acting is not too bad, although the hippie stoner guy is a little bit too dramatic. The killer is your shambling idiot, 5 year-old mental capacity but the story doesn't really mimic that too well.
There aren't that many flaws with the movie. Sure, it doesn't teach you any life lessons, except maybe don't give blowjobs to people you've just met, but it's better than a lot of other slashers out there. It's got a good pace, too, not slow and lumbering like a lot of slashers. Instead of trying to flesh out the characters and failing, the movie basically skips over all of that for an entertaining gore-fest. There's not THAT much gore, but some parts are pretty grotesque.

This isn't a bad movie to watch on a dark, stormy Friday night. It's been done before - The Funhouse especially comes to mind - but it does reference the horror movies that have influenced it and it's a satisfying romp through the dark ride...

My ending jokes just get cornier and cornier.