User Reviews

When I started to watch this movie, I thought awesome, a boy band that is mostly zombies, awesome premise. This movie however took a horribly bad turn and became an unwatchable piece of garbage. First off, no gore. If your going to make a crappy B-movie about zombies, you need gore. This had none, the zombies apparently kill their victims by dog piling them to death, what the hell. Also if you have a zombie movie, more than 4 people have to die, and they all need to die violently on camera.

The movie starts out with the singer of a boy band getting dog piled by the rest of the band, presumably because he found out they were zombies. So the band needs a new singer and holds nation wide try outs. Three people are picked and go to the bands private Island where one by one they disappear (i.e. "eaten" by the zombies) until only the "bad boy" remains, and saves the day. Late in the movie you find out that they are actually a boy band from the 50's who got in a plane crash and they were all killed. Then this lady brings them back with some kind of magic, and they were different hit boy bands through out the past few decades. No one seemed to notice that all these bands looked like the same 4 dudes with different hair cuts and clothes. Then at the end the main characters girl friend dies and he brings her back as a zombie.

Didn't this guy see "Return of the Living Dead 3", not a good idea. Acting was horrible, script was horrible, and no blood or nudity. I wouldn't recommend this movie to anyone. Also you must endure music that makes the Backstreet Boys seem tolerable.

They keep flashing back to shots of the music video they made in the beginning. It really was a gay movie I mean there was to much of the guys for my liking. And the comment "it tastes like life" was totally gay. I will admit that when the main character found the box and saw that they had been doing this for like 50 years that was kinda cool but overall it was so bad. But seriously how many times did they flash back to that music video? anytime they needed to fill space they did. And then kill the one guy because he won't gang bang a chick with you? I don't know I am glad that I did not pay to rent this movie that is for sure. I will also be warning people at my video store not to rent it either.

Where should I start....first...the storyline...Basically its about a group of pretty boy band guys who eat people...doesn't that sound like a blockbuster film!! No wonder it was only meant for TV..not for movie theatres...if it did go there i'm sure it would do worse than Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D. If there are people out there who like this movie I just have one thing to say to you...What is the matter with you? I guess you like cheesy ''horror'' movies with bad story lines and weird people. In conclusion..please don't watch it...i wish I never saw it...I wasted 1 hour 45 minutes (appr.) of my life! The End. My Story is done. Good-bye!

This movie boasts an interesting enough premise: A talent search is held to replace the lead singer of the enormously popular and successful boy band Take Ten after the guy suddenly disappears. The finalists are all flown to a remote exotic island. One by one they start to get bumped off. It turns out Take Ten are a bunch of evil immortals who engage in some kind of black rites ritual in order to stay young forever. Director David DeCoteau, working from an insipid and unsurprising script by Michael Gingold and Matthew Jason Walsh, crucially fails to bring any tension or creepy atmosphere to the proceedings; instead DeCoteau overdoes his patented blatant heavy-handed homoeroticism to the annoying ninth degree with such stuff as the four members of Take Ten attacking their mostly male victims in a snarling pack (they bite the dudes and drink their blood) and leering shots of buff young hunks with six-pack abs wearing nothing but black boxer shorts. Worse yet, the villains lack menace and the limp ending totally fizzles. Moreover, the flashy razzle-dazzle MTV music video style proves to be equally irritating and excessive, with far too much affected posturing, rapid-fire editing, appallingly bad singing and dancing (think the Backstreet Boys on a very cruddy day), and gauzy bright lighting. The severe lack of hardcore gore and tasty gratuitous female nudity doesn't help matters any. This movie further suffers from a lot of incredibly poor acting, with former "American Idol" series regular Ryan Starr qualifying as the worst offender with her dreadful performance as token hot babe Stacy. Adrienne Barbeau manages to do decent work as the band's shrewd manager Alex while John Waters film favorite Mink Stole is wasted in a nothing minor role as tabloid newspaper editor Fletcher. A real wash-out.

This movie was not the worst movie I Have ever watched but pretty darn close to it! The plot which is about a group of zombie Boy Band members who after losing their head leader zombie singer need to find another . They hold auditions and choose a few guys to come back to their home place and continue the auditions. There are three guys and each are has their own reason for being there, one a reporter, the other is just wanting to join the pack, and other is because of his girl friend. While at this home on a remote beach the action starts taking place, (no more said you can say for your self rather or not its action). I ,however, believe that there was very little action. The movie took Sationnist worships and made them look funny rather than scary as they should look. Another writer said there was no violence in this movie "so why was it Rated R"? I guess being eaten, shoot in the heart with a bow, and dragging someone against their will some place is not enough violent for someone. I think the movie was trying to play on the fact that all boys bands are close by using sexuality to show they share everything. Which in turn just made them look how shell I say this nicely not completely straight! They also had some very cheesy dance moves, a horrible pop song, and clothing. Their was the cute one, the hot one, the guy next door, the etc one. I gave this movie a four because I was very bored when I turned it on; it was very easy to laugh. There was some good acting by the women who played the girlfriend of one and the boyfriend, the reporter, and the head witch. I found the scenery very nice to look at from time to time like when they showed the ocean water hitting the rocks, but that got over shadowed when they started showing the dark woods and the fogy house which look too man made and the hiding place of the guy zombies which also looked to man made. Their was ,how,ever, one perk to the whole movie good looking guys. Over all I say don't buy the movie first rent it if its even out on video or watch it on Showtime like I did. It was worth the laugh too keep me busy for a hour or so.

Warning: This review contains slight spoilers.

B movies are not recognised for their social commentary, but Ring of Darkness can be considered a modest exception. This, and many others produced by Rapid Heart Pictures, are essentially 'closet horror' movies.

Homosexual themes are not presented explicitly, but the style of the direction, the subtextual interpretations of the narrative and the posters for the films themselves all indicate something slightly different from the mainstream. Though present, heterosexual women have only a peripheral role in the narrative and the gaze of the camera contradicts every 'straight' moment, a principle argument in 'queer theory' of the implications of the buddy movie narratives of Lethal Weapon (1987) etc.

This subconscious presentation of sexual concerns is not uncommon. Studies of a great deal of horror films consider the view of the monster as metaphorical. A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985) can be seen as a destructive 'coming out' narrative. This film goes a step further by highlighting the male form over all other aspects. This colours responses to the narrative and the director's intentions.

Director David DeCoteau is a director with many years of experience in exploitation cinema and clearly has an agenda. Openly gay himself, every decision in his recent films appears to have been made for a reason. So, one has to consider the full implications of a film which advertises itself with posters of young men who look as though they stepped out of the pages of Attitude, yet contain not even the briefest mention of homosexuality, let alone romance.

While the homo-erotica of DeCoteau's contemporary oeuvre appears greatly indebted to the likes of Interview with the Vampire (1994), Ring of Darkness is a closer relation to that film's inferior sequel, Queen of the Damned (2002) in its unity of horror and popular music. Unlike that film the music is the hook and not the selling point. Here we go beyond usual horror cliché to explore the boy band phenomenon itself, which has dominated the music industry for over 10 years.

Society is still rather uncomfortable with homosexuality. We've just about accepted it on TV, and that's mainly in relation to comedy. Many celebrities are still believed to be in the closet because of such prejudice. Take the boy band for example. Occasionally extremely camp, in terms of theatrical choreography and attention to physical perfection, boy bands always sing ballads about women and are adored mostly by young girls, who make up the majority of the pop audience. I don't feel like I'm incorrect in saying that if an openly gay boy band emerged their success would be severely limited. It appears that this is a foundation for DeCoteau's film, with the band protecting their metaphorical secret from an innocent public.

Issues of sexuality aside, it seems the film strives even to use the horror as a metaphor for pop music itself. Called Take 10, this is merely the current incarnation of the immortal quartet. It is discovered that they have actually been around since the 1950s, continually reinventing themselves to conform to the latest pop trend. Quite clearly this is a clever swipe at the nature of pop music itself, a genre whose popularity is ephemeral and in constant need of change to adapt to the culture of the time.

My playground sense of humour meant that I couldn't help but snigger a little at the irony implied by the title. From an allegorical perspective it seems actually kind of apt. Mainstream society's long held fears of homosexuality are played out as the protagonist struggles to keep hold of his prized heterosexuality in a familiar 'join us or die' narrative. The secret of their monster nature representing their closet status, the violent acts they commit play to dated fears of their predatory nature; their cannibalism specifically playing on fears of rape.

Due to uncharacteristic complexity I initially had difficulty trying to figure out what point director David DeCoteau is trying to make. It appears he's sending mixed signals. Playing the film 'straight' does allow the film to appeal to a wide audience, and in a sense he is exploiting audience expectation. The modestly sexy shots of the girls in the movie are clearly highlighted in the trailer far more than the overwhelming number of male 'underwear model' shots that fill the running time. He seems to have fun playing with the audience. Objectifying men instead of women can create unease in an audience far more than even gore, so DeCoteau makes sure the role of girlfriend is there to reassure, allowing a conventional narrative to carry the viewer along.

Even though the times have changed, to make a genre film which frankly presented homosexual characters would likely cause it to be marginalised. DeCoteau's films enjoy the best of both worlds. A Bi-movie, if you'll forgive the pun. Maximising the talents of a small cast, a modest location and minimising special effects, Gay audiences can have fun with the subversion of film-making norms and enjoy the sculpted physiques on display.

Straight audiences can safely enjoy a horror narrative which exploits their fear of the unknown, consistently appeased by the sight of nubile young women and the safe resolution of the defeat of evil. DeCoteau's intent is actually closer to that of David Cronenberg or Clive Barker. Good and evil, black and white, there are no absolutes in reality. Ring of Darkness allows the audience to see what it wants to and to consider the implications themselves.

This is a movie about, essentially, an evil boy band. They kill one of their member (in the first 5 minutes, not exactly a spoiler) and are looking for someone to replace him. The movie then follows three hopefuls to the bands mansion where they continue to audition to join the band. What happens then is fairly easy to predict, but I still found it entertaining. I'm a huge fan of horror movies, especially the ones involving monsters of some kind. I actually enjoyed this movie, although I would never call it horror. It was very campy, which I get a massive kick out of anyway. There was an exceptional amount of homosexual sub-text and some that might be considered straight up text. The only thing that really bothered me was the end. The way that the monsters are defeated is so incredibly easy, it's disgusting. They had this huge build-up to an end fight and they get killed in a less than 2 minutes. This is after being shown as powerful and strong. Plus, they outnumbered the "good" guys 5 to 2 (counting their manager). All in all, it was a great laugh and a fun way to spend part of a cold afternoon.

"Ring of Darkness" is a really mediocre zombie film with several flaws and positive ones.

**SPOILERS**

After an unexpected incident, Xavier Doorsberg, (Jeremy Jackson) B.J. Banyon, (Colin Bain) Jake Slater, (Matt T. Baker) and Kyle West, (John Wynn) members of a popular boy-band, decide to hold an audition to determine the fifth member of the group. One applicant, Shawn Walker, (Coltin Scott) manages to impress their manager Alex Marshall, (Adrienne Barbeau) and is offered a spot with the band. Undergoing a rigorous training process to prepare himself, his rebellious attitude begins to rub off on the other members, but he is allowed to stay there. As he decides to leave, he stumbles upon a special secret about the band and their past, which contains everything from black magic rituals to human sacrifice. When the others get wind of his knowledge, they plan to make sure he doesn't reveal the horrible secret to the world.

The Good News: This here dis manage to get some things right. Every now and then, there was a pretty nice visual supplied by the film. The big one happens pretty early in the film, as the sight of the giant house surrounded by fog in the moonlight in the background is a pretty impressive sight. The several rituals held in the cave do the same, since the cave itself looks great and has a fantastic, chilly vibe to it that is mixed in with the necessary ingredients for the ritual. These here are all great examples of this, which works for the caves because it's seen so often, since there's several big sequences in the film that require such scenes to be necessary. It really seems to pick up energy in the last half hour as well, actually doing something rather than just wander around with few key moments here and there where the band attacks others. This includes a rather lengthy chase sequence and a brilliant ceremony that features the only real gore in the film as several violently melt down into piles of sand. The chase stands out for the fact that it's long, creepy, suspenseful and holds the interest throughout, which the movie proper does as well. That's always a great thing for a film to do, especially one as cheesy as this one is. There's some pretty good elements from this one when it tries.

The Bad News: There really isn't a whole lot wrong with this film. Most of the flaws present can be attributed to it's short run-length. This here piles on most of the boy-band gimmicks into the front end of the film that it doesn't have a lot of steam for the second half, and that makes it feel really rushed and not at all that timed perfectly. This one really could've been stretched out for another couple of minutes to let it transition better into the horror after the boy-band shenanigans at the beginning. That's due to the discovery and acceptance done too quickly, which doesn't feel natural. There's also no real blood or gore until the end, really making the beginning part quite dull and bloodless. For a film about zombies, that's really hard to believe, knowing about the past. There really should've been more, especially as there isn't a whole lot of kills to begin with. Some gore would've helped, and it's hard to say to say how it would've been had it changed around the perception of zombies. This one here almost shouldn't be a zombie film, as they behave so unlike zombies. There's no roaming hoards, no shuffling about and take on the form of a dancing, pop-music boy-band. It's hard to feel any fear, especially as this one is so far removed from traditional zombie fare. That shouldn't be a strike, but it is, and also manages to bring this down slightly.

The Final Verdict: While staying away slightly from the general rule of zombie films, this one does have enough going for it to make it worthwhile. There's plenty here for lovers of direct-to-video fare to enjoy, while those who aren't that into them will be disappointed by this one.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence and Brief Nudity