Ghosts of Darkness (2017) User Reviews (34)

"Somebody is playing games with us"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 6/10 · 21 May 2017]

Two investigators, one a psychic and one a sceptic, are tasked to stay in an allegedly haunted house to prove that nothing is there so the house can be sold, or developed, or something. The two agree and before long strange things start to happen. The house has a history of violence and eventually the reason for this is discovered. The film works very well for the first two thirds but the last third descends a bit into silliness which is a shame.

The location is atmospheric (Ardgour House in Scotland),the photography competent and the earlier scenes are well directed until the movie comes apart. Michael Koltes was not convincing in his role but Paul Flannery was excellent. He brought well balanced humour, feeling and intelligence to the role as the psychic.

Decent budget horror

[RandomTard · 5/10 · 6 September 2022]

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. As far as small budget movies go, this was one of the better ones. Of course there are issues and the acting seems a bit off, but the script makes some sense at least until we get near the end. The sounds are balanced enough, there's no awesome visual effects but what there is is well enough done and doesn't look dirt cheap.

The worst thing about the movie is the ending. It gets a bit, well silly and felt a little rushed. But apart from that, the movie was entertaining and there were some comedic elements that actually weren't all that bad. The jumpscares were made with good taste and without supersonic booms that break your ears.

A Small Scottish Gem In The Heather

[omendata · 6/10 · 5 April 2018]

I wasnt expecting much from this but it was surprisingly good for a low budget movie.

Firstly it isnt a horror its a horror comedy.

I have always loved Ardgour house where it was filmed and my favourite Scottish Ghost Story movie LORD OF TEARS was also filmed there - If you havent seen it then do so; its a uniquely Scottish chilling ghost story harkening back to the days of Agatha Christie and reminiscent of a James Herbert novel like Ghosts Of Sleath. I dunno whether it was because this film was also filmed at the same location but it also had that old style feel to it which added to my enjoyment.

I thought the two main characters performed well although Paul Flannery stole the show for me , his acting was excellent and he was one of those guys who are naturally funny and looked more like Johnny Depp than Johnny Depp does himself these days.

This was quite an interesting film with gore akin to higher budget movies; a cross between the Evil Dead and House On Haunted Hill with laughs.

Very different and quite funny - It wont split your sides with laughter and it wont scare the pants off you but it will make you smile and the Scottish setting was as always very impressive - The location itself is always up for rental so if you fancy a spooky Scottish getaway I can highly recommend Ardgour house - take this along with you and watch it in the house as we did with both movies and you might just meet the real ghosts!

Ok for a rainy night

[pieter_prins · 5/10 · 21 November 2019]

Its a haunted house Movie allright. With 2 characters where it has been way to obvious to make then Total oppositie characters .

Some of the demons are scary , other ones more likely make you laugh.

IT has got Some scary moments, but I never got really drawn into the movie. Its a typical B Movie , but ive soon Manu worse.

Almost a comedy - certainly not a horror movie

[grys-23347 · 3/10 · 9 March 2017]

Firstly the positives: the poster, awesome. Very Army of Darkness feel. Secondly: Paul Flannery - delivery was great, just a hint of light-heartedness & gravitas. Thirdly: cinematography was good - not enough dark or shadows but generally OK. . Sadly that's where the positives stop. . Unfortunately Michael Koltes was flat & delivery was ordinary. His timing & tone need work. His facial expression was just as flat. There was a lot of "Dean Winchester" style about the character without the bluster, fun or aggression. . The story was fairly typical of this type of movie & had potential to be a fun/action movie. . Certainly not the best movie nor the worst.

Flawed Low Budget Haunted House Film

[claudio_carvalho · 4/10 · 18 December 2017]

The paranormal investigators Jack Donavan (Michael Koltes) and Jonathan Blazer (Paul Flannery) receive a mysterious invitation card to go to the notorious Richmond Manor, where several murders have happened along 200 years. A mysterious butler tells that his boss has invited them to stay for three nights at the mansion to get rid of the label of haunted house. In return, they would receive fifty thousand dollars each. Jack is a skeptical man that uses technology to find frauds while Jonathan is a medium. What will they find in the Richmond Manor?

"Ghosts of Darkness" is a flawed low budget haunted house film with many clichés. However with improvements in the storyline and screenplay; a better budget; and replacement of the unconvincing Michael Koltes, this film could work. The result is not good but is not awful at all since Paul Flannery gives some touch of humor to the story. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): Not Available

Lukewarm ghosts

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 6 May 2018]

'Ghosts of Darkness' drew me into seeing it, with a cool and creepy poster, an intriguing idea with a potentially relatable central relationship and as someone with a general appreciation for horror. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

Actually found 'Ghosts of Darkness' fairly watchable, if not an easy film to rate or review. Had to think long and hard about what my thoughts were and how to articulate them. 'Ghosts of Darkness' is not great, or good, has a fair share of problems (fairly big ones too) and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There are however a number of decent, even good, qualities in 'Ghosts of Darkness', at least it wasn't intelligence insulting or inept (unlike some films seen recently) and the potential is not completely squandered.

Lets start with the positives. The scenery is very atmospheric, likewise with the very nice way it's shot. The music is suitably spooky and quirky and doesn't distract at all from the atmosphere, while not exactly enhancing it.

Some of the acting is better than average, particularly the breath of fresh air that is Paul Flanery who really livens things up. There are some genuinely scary and suspenseful moments and the atmosphere has creepiness.

However, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it feels vague, under-explained. The more 'Ghosts of Darkness' progresses, the duller, more predictable, more senseless and less scary, and too many characters are too sketchy. Other actors don't fare so well, with Michael Koltes being a truly lifeless lead.

Dialogue can be stilted while the pace is uneven, dragging in some of the second half. The humour is also variable, parts are funny while others are cheesy and misplaced. Found the supposedly shocking moments not so surprising and the end felt incomplete and not much of a climax.

Overall, not bad at all while leaving me a bit lukewarm. 5/10 Bethany Cox

The Good And The Bad

[nightblooming_violet · 5/10 · 28 August 2018]

This is a fairly good B Movie. The characters are interesting and like able. The story line is enjoyable. The only complaint I have is the monster makeup is terrible. Like truly awful. If you can ignore that though you will probably like this movie.

Surprisingly good

[mikejallen79 · 7/10 · 8 March 2017]

The is a UK low budget horror movie so when I say surprisingly good I am referencing the word budget from many angles.

The two relatively unknown actors carry virtually the whole film between them... No mean feat... And they do it very well.

The story isn't bad, the suspense is good, the creepiness is well timed and the scares are well launched.

I would go as far as to say I would watch it again in time and I would certainly recommend to friends.

Ghosts of Dullness

[dcarsonhagy · 2/10 · 11 March 2017]

It still amazes me how people involved in a film can manage to mangle it so bad that it comes off as a joke. Such is the case for "Ghosts of Darkness." I rarely go on about a movie this bad, but I'm going to make an exception here because this movie had potential--the house and its back story. However, given what was put on the screen, you'd never know it.

Two paranormal researchers are contacted by a mysterious man who offers them each $50,000 if they can stay in a house with a gruesome history. Jonathan is a medium; Jack is the "I'm-not-going-to- believe-anything-unless-it-bites-me-in-the-ass" dude. If that isn't bad enough, he also has the personality of a fence post. Mystery man takes their cell phones and car keys and tells them they will be locked in for the next 36 hours. They are each given $25,000 up front and told they'll get the remaining $25,000 upon completion of their "project." This is where the film went off track completely, and if you're smart, you'll realize what I'm talking about.

For a movie to rely on two people, those people should have some kind of chemistry. That is nowhere to be found. Jonathan acts as though the entire project is a joke. Jack acts as if he's just been hit in the head with a brick. The director couldn't make up his mind if he wanted a comedy or a horror movie and although you can have elements of both in a movie, you need to know how to blend those elements. It also would help if your characters could ACT. It was pretty evident to me the guy cast to play the "tortured soul", a/k/a Jack, couldn't act his way out of a paper bag. The character of Jonathan looked eerily like Gary Oldman's character of Sirius Black (from the Harry Potter movies). Another suggestion is to STOP with this crap of CGI demons. They are not scary and give me an impression you're too lazy to hire real makeup artists.

Rated "R" for violence, disturbing images, and language.

Fun Spooky Movie

[ladymidath · 8/10 · 13 July 2021]

Ghosts Of Darkness is a fun film to watch, don't expect anything innovative, it's a paint by the numbers horror that has a few scares. The two leads are very good and have a bit of on screen chemistry despite their characters differences.

It's best watched with a couple of glasses of wine and some popcorn. It's fun, not too violent and the story moves along pretty smoothly. It stayed away from being another found footage movie, not that I have anything against found footage movies, it's just their there are so many at the moment. It told a good story and even though the acting was at times stilted, it still did the job.

Don't expect too much, just settle back and enjoy.

If it moves, kill it again.

[nogodnomasters · 7/10 · 25 July 2017]

The film opens with the girl being dragged across the floor and not the closing shot. Afterwards Sarah (Morgan Faith Keith) shows her father Mike Johnson (Cameron Mowat) what she thinks of her cereal breakfast. It appears the Richmond Manor has some possession issues. Two polar opposite ghost hunters are called in to give the house a clean bill of health. Jonathan Blazer (Paul Flannery) is old school psychic equipped with candles, salt, and a Ouija board. Jack Donavan (Michael Koltes) is new school with electronic gadgets. He is also a skeptic and believes Blazer to be a phony and doesn't mind saying so. The two are tasked to spend three days in the house, come out and say "nothing happened." Except something does happen.

The film starts out with music and events that make you think it is supposed to be a comedy-horror. There are later events to indicate this too, however when the film attempts to take itself seriously, it fails. Perhaps the worst scene in the film was when Jack laments about his dead wife to Blazer. We have already seen what happened in a flashback. Jack speaks very slowly taking Shatneresque dramatic pauses that dragged along giving us information we already know. Just run the clip again! There were scenes that reminded me of "House" (1985) but they didn't pan out as well. Better than most horror films out there with some originality. Paul Flannery gives a good performance with unkempt hair reminding me of a little of Gary Oldman as Sirius Black.

Guide: F-word. No sex or nudity.

Don't waste your time or money

[redneckronniexxx · 1/10 · 9 March 2017]

Got this on VUDU, had a cool poster advertising it so looked promising but how I was wrong, first off the greatest investigators don't know about the house, they do no research and they move around with no plan yet supposedly best in the field but no idea what to do. The music is weak, the dah-dumb dah-dumb constantly playing in repeated motifs at the same volume detracts from the stunning cinematography pushing a creepy feel, also there is a scene where paul flannery's character is explaining the ouija board and some happy music starts playing, it kills the vibe of the scene before it even starts. Also this is not a horror, its not even close to one, its not scary at any point, and it seems like the producer decided halfway through filming to go a comedy route as the opening of the movie to 30 mins in, changes completely in tone in the later half. Paul Flannery who plays Jonathan Blazer however is absolutely amazing, this dude cracks me up, delivering a performance which will secure him for many future film productions. The CGI that is used was a waste of money, it did nothing to help, only destroy the movie, it kills it seriously. Bar the cinematography and the performance by Flannery, this movie is awful.

Not going to be a groundbreaking revolution in the horror genre...

[paul_haakonsen · 4/10 · 18 June 2018]

When I got the chance to sit down and watch "Ghosts of Darkness", it was without knowing a single thing about the movie. I didn't know what it was about, nor did I know who was starring in the movie. I only knew, well assumed actually, that it was a horror movie based on the DVD cover.

The story in "Ghosts of Darkness" was actually quite alright. The movie just suffered from being a low budget movie, you know what I mean here if you actually sit down to watch this movie.

The CGI in the movie was rather questionable, but of course that was to be expected from a movie such as this, given the production value and the budget of the movie.

The acting performances were good, and the few actors and actresses on the cast list did carry the movie quite well.

"Ghosts of Darkness" was weighed down by a predictable outcome of the storyline.

The house itself was quite interesting and had lots of character, and that was actually one of the best things about the movie.

All in all, "Ghosts of Darkness" is hardly worth the time or effort, as there are far, far better horror movies available to pick and choose from.

"There now; that wasn't so good, was it?" -- Leonard "Pinth" Garnell

[methis · 2/10 · 13 December 2018]

Promising premise for a decent haunted house story is wasted due to an over-the-top melodramatic score and one of the two lead actors, one Michael Koltes, being much too young, mincing, and untalented to pull off the role of a grumpy, jaded, skeptical yet haunted heterosexual widower. The other lead actor is actually enjoyable, but has too much to overcome. Aside from the above, there's not a decent scare to be found.

Pretty Good Haunted House Flick Till the Very End

[knightox · 5/10 · 29 October 2019]

Jonathan Blazer (Paul Fannery) and Jack Donavan (Michael Koltes) are two paranormal researchers who are summoned to a British manor where mysterious murders have been supposedly occurring over the last 200 years. The estate's unnamed owner has invited them to stay there for 72 hours to dispel any rumors that the place in haunted. The bargain is after three days of being locked inside they must come out and tell the public there is absolutely nothing supernatural happening in the ancient building and get paid $50,000 each. Jonathan is a psychic and believer in the occult while Jack completely believes in science only and is constantly trying to disprove anything unnatural. The reason for Jack's strong feelings about this is because his late wife was an actual medium who dabbled in witchcraft. One day she committed suicide after messing around with it and since then, Jack has wanted to prove magic and the supernatural weren't real. He wanted to believe it was all in her head. Flash forward to Jack and Jonathan's stay in the house and they immediately begin seeing tangible ghosts of people previously murdered there. They are able to use a shotgun on one ghost woman, disabling it. Another one (who's like a fat hobo with a beard, oblivious to the large hole the buckshot left in its chest after being shot) continues to slowly chase after Jack. Upstairs Jonathan encounters a ghostly teenage girl who manages to stab him in the foot and then the leg. He manages to throw salt in her face, temporarily blinding her, then stabs her through the top of the skull with the same knife she stabbed him with. For some reason that "kills" the ghost girl. Meanwhile Jack loses the hobo ghost somehow and comes into a room to meet a zombie-like ghost of his dead wife. She gives him a guilt trip about her death and then begins stabbing herself trying to drive Jack mental. He pulls out a rosary with a crucifix and manages to drive her away. Jack then joins Jonathan where he has poured a salt circle in the attic. There they plan to drive the demon that has caused all the chaos in this home for last two dozen decades back to its to wherever it originally came. Jonathan warns Jack not to look at before they begin. They succeed in summoning the demon before casting it out... Now here's why I don't rank this movie any higher... After the purging Jonathan remarks "My, that was almost too easy!". Turns out it was. Jack has stared at the demon and became possessed. While Jack is attempting to strangle him, Jonathan shreds a tear and stabs Jack. The next scene shows Jonathan coming out the unlocked front doors with the shotgun. It's been three days. For some inexplicable reason the movie directors have a guy in a shabby, rubbery demon costume come up behind Jonathan and say, "Skipping out so early?". Then Jonathan flips the shotgun over his shoulder (right beside his ear) and fires. The End. Yeah I didn't care for the last 5 minutes of what had been a pretty entertaining haunted house flick.

Ignore the reviews.

[Beanbagels · 3/10 · 18 June 2019]

When I say "Ignore the reviews", I am, of course, referring to the positive reviews! I watched this because some a-hole had said that it was one of the best haunted house movies he had ever seen. Well, he can't have seen many. This was dire. The acting was awful and the special effects weren't special. I have seen better on a Wednesday afternoon on the SyFy Channel, and we all know how bad they can be. I never thought I would ever say that a movie, which was only 82 minutes running time, was too long, but this was. It was that boring. Never again will I ever base my evenings viewing on an Imdb user review, just as I don't expect any of you to base your viewing on this review. You all have free will to make up your own minds, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Bad on every level

[ericdhall77 · 3/10 · 4 April 2020]

Not sure if it was the acting or the script. The cocky investigator is just bad. There was nothing believable about this actor. I've seen better horror from homemade YouTube videos. This is definitely in the bottom 10 horror movies I've seen. I gave it a three because the house they're in is beautiful and it takes place in Scotland. That's it's only saving grace if that says anything.

Black comedy heaven but terrible makeup

[holl_pooki-73660 · 7/10 · 14 May 2019]

This film, although advertised as a horror is actually a black comedy. It had all the hallmarks of a great black comedy - funny one liners, brilliant lead character (Paul flannery) and constant storytelling action. The one thing that brought it down to 7 stars was the god awful demon and ghost makeup. It's as if they hired a bunch of teenagers to do some holiday face painting. Maybe that was the look they were going for though?.... great watch when you just want to chill out.

Predictable load of rubbish

[baggie58-423-80314 · 1/10 · 16 June 2019]

Like in an unpleasant pantomime the minimal cast overact and gurn at the audience. Absolute tosh. Not even worth a longer review as there's nothing more to be said than a complete waste of time, both of my time watching it and the makers' time shooting it.

Entertaining Ghost Hunter flick

[dogma-53668 · 9/10 · 12 August 2022]

I saw this under the name House of Ghosts. It's actually pretty entertaining and not meant to be more than it is : A haunted house mystery. It has some very interesting plot twists and is more interesting than it is scary but definitely pleasing. Give it a shot. The basically unknown actors do really well and they're very convincing.

Much Better Than I Thought

[dana-kellish · 7/10 · 7 August 2020]

When Ghosts of Darkness started and the low-budget aspects became apparent, I lost all my hope. However, this film wears its low-budget status like a badge of honor and makes the very most of it. Wink-wink performances (though good), occasional well-placed humor, and some genuine scares and you've got a winner.

if hammer horror used their 70's skills

[jamiegates-28471 · 2/10 · 23 April 2021]

If hammer horror used their 70's skills this is the film you would end up with. Pretty dull really.

This awful is zero not 1 but can't select zero...

[welshtrekker · 1/10 · 12 June 2019]

Hats off to the director. Good job. Hope he gets to work on better budget films.

The film is flawed more than insanely possible right from the start when we instantly realise that apart from one or two actors - none can act and an unintentional goofy horror comes your way.

Trapped inside wooden acting that makes cliches funny again, the pain grows with every second of amateurish moment that unfolds...

Shame as the director gets the genre. But he needed better writers, better actors (not hard to find) and better production value.

Horrifying movie yes... but not in a good way. Just bad from the start folks.

Not the worst thing I've seen.

[AngelsAngel · 4/10 · 14 March 2023]

I certainly wouldn't call this great, and it'd be a stretch to even call it good, but for what it is, (a relatively unknown and very low budget horror), it's above average quality. The actor who played Johnathan especially, Paul Flannery, had such a charm and stage presence to him, and with a good script, I really think he'd do numbers! Unfortunately, Ghosts of Darkness is not that script; it's weak, not well paced, riddled with clichés and bad decisions and missed potential. It's also constrained by the stagnant singular setting and singular only other cast member, not leaving much room for natural dialogue to play off others or more intrigue .

The filming/camerawork itself however is steady and professional. Also the horror/blood makeup at the end is surprisingly subtly well done/eerie and impressive (for the most part), which suited the film and built up atmosphere well, but then the final scenes tainted themselves with bad cgi they did not have the budget to pull off, nor the strength of story to justify needing, which just transformed the whole vibe into something rather silly and laughable rather than genuinely creepy.

Overall, this had a couple surprisingly decent tidbits here and there (again, for what it is), but it's still just rather tired and too stiff/stale to be anything really special.