My brother and I caught this movie on the cinema right after we watched The Dark Knight Rises and we were under no illusions that it was going to be at the level of a Hollywood blockbuster because a.) we have never heard about it and b.) the poster that gave us no idea as to what the movie could be about.  That being said, I later did some digging on the film to better understand it, where it came from, and what the hell the filmmakers were thinking when they did this movie.

The movie is actually a Finnish horror film starring Skye Bennet as an autistic little girl Sarah who is checked into St. Mary’s General Hospital. Her father Ben (Noah Huntley) and her doctors are still stumped by her illness as her symptoms are different from any other case they have handled so Sarah is advised to stay in the hospital until the mystery is resolved. However, Ben, seeing that his daughter is unhappy, decides to sneak her out of the hospital to take her home. While heading for the elevator, he bumps into one of Sarah’s nurses Emily (Dominique McElligot), a homeless dude named Tobias (Ronald Pickup), security guard Rick (Leon Herbert) and requisite douchebag Jon (William Hope). The group board the elevator but when they get out on the next floor, they discover that the entire hospital is abandoned and under attack by supernatural creatures apparently out to get Sarah.

The movie actually had a decent premise. The group is stuck in some sort of limbo, and they discover that each floor is also a representation of a different timeline. There were even some  attempts to justify the events as a parallel dimension but the problem was really that the entire concept lacked cohesion. There were many clues that were thrown in that points to Sarah as the key to solving the mystery but nobody really takes notice until its too late and danger is imminent.

Also, while Europeans would think that rock star monsters are cool (the supernatural beings were played by Lordi, a super popular horror/punk/rock group who is really big in the Eurovision song circuit), it really does not do anything but generate more questions for regular moviegoers who are unaware of the monsters’ rock star status such as why are the monsters/ demons dressed like Bebop and Rocksteady (from TMNT)?

In the end, audiences will be left to formulate their own conclusions. While in totality, Dark Floors was not a bad attempt at horror, it was obvious that the movie was only shot to indulge the whim of the writers who thought they had a good idea (they did), and ran with it, unmindful of the loopholes and compensating for it with a cool soundtrack.  Unfortunately, making good movies do not really work that way. Very disappointing.