MovieChat Forums > Dark Floors (2008) Discussion > To all the critics of Dark Floors

To all the critics of Dark Floors

posted 15 years ago by vidiotja
19 replies | jump to latest

This is directed to all those who have been harsh on this movie due to a confusing plot. One thing that must be remembered when watching this movie is a foreign film. It is a finnish film made that was never really intended to be released in the US. that being said, the monsters in this movie were the heavy metal band Lordi. In the movie they play "themselves", so unless you know of Lordi, you probaly wont understand what they represent. The costumes used by Lordi are the same costumes the use on stage when the band plays, in fact, the members of Lordi, dont like to be seen outside of their costumes, because to them it is the monsters that make the music, not the humans inside. The even went to give each monster its own bio. Mr.Lordi, the guy bands lead singer/ the monster in the parking area in the movie has the ability to effortlessly transport himself and others across dimensional barriers, and ability it seems he may use when the cast is in the elevator when they get stuck in the beginning. The other band membersin their monster persona are tasked with fighting a trans-dimentional war with Mr.Lordi's enemies. None of this is explained in the english release of this movie, and that could be because it either wasnt explained in the Finnish version, since in Finland Lordi is a hugely popular band with the members monster persona's bios are fairly well known, or the explaination might have gotten lost in the translation of the movie. Any movie that gets translated fromone language to another tends to lose something in the transition, especially if the original script uses alot of slang or phrases that dont hold the same meaning in another language. Personally, i am a fan of the Lordi, and while i still have a few questions about the movie, knowing about the band definatly helped me understand this movie fairly well. All in all, i liked this film, it just needs some research on who Lordi are to understand that which is going on, but considering that it lists Lordi as playing themselves and its full title is Dark Floors-The Lordi Motion Picture, one should realize that some knowledge of Lordi might be needed.

'Nuff Said

[–] sirdyke 11 years ago

Thank you. I was sitting here trying to figure out what the heck i just watched and what the heck just happened.
On a side note, I met Mr. Lordi at an Ozzfest tour and he was a very articulate and civilized Monster.

[–] cyril_grey 8 years ago

I understand what you are saying, but I disagree. Regardless of where the band is from and what the target audience was, the film was still marketed to areas unfamiliar with Lordi and all the mythology behind their characters, so it is the film's responsibility to give the viewer the information they need within the film.

I'll use the X-Files: Fight the Future film as a great example. Fans of the X-files television show were the target audience. They were the core group the studio intended to show the film to, but the film still takes time in the beginning to establish the characters and tell the audience that they are FBI agents who were responsible for investigation unconventional cases and they were not well liked and they had been shut down and all that stuff- things all the fans of the show were sitting there thinking "yeah, we know!", but they do it within the context of the story so that the fans can accept it without getting annoyed and the people who just wanted to see a movie but knew nothing about the X-files could follow along and never have to watch an episode of the tv show if they chose not to. Was the dialogue clunky and obvious? Yes. Did fans get upset? No. Because it still seemed like something they could possibly say as part of the story, but it filled in the newcomers so they could understand who these people were.

If you ever watch CinemaSins, one of the main rules CS has is "the book doesn't count". Films cannot cut corners or expect an audience to know things "because it is in the book". If the audience needs to know something to tell the story contained in that particular film, you must provide them with everything they need to understand the story within that film. Yes, you can reward the book readers by including little nods to the book that you can only understand if you read them, but it cannot be something integral to the story arc. Sure, an "artist" may wish people to come to their own conclusions and fill in the gaps themselves, but when they do that they must be prepared to suffer criticism by those who don't want to put that much effort into their film watching.

All that said, I didn't find the story of Dark Floors hard to follow. In fact, I found it pretty pedestrian and I feel like the writer thought they were writing something far deeper than they actually did. Watch Villeneuve's Enemy or Von Trier's Anti-Christ if you want to see some really challenging narratives- though, honestly, I personally despise Lars von Trier and consider him a pretentious twat, but his films are still abstract and still require effort from the audience. Dark Floors does not. It simply lacks the finesse of an experienced screenwriter who knows the craft and knows how to build a proper 3 to 5 act structure and design an appropriate story arc for the film as well as multiple characters. Dark Floors was just a psychological horror "what if?" situation where each band member could "be scary" in his/her own unique way that used their musical disciplines as a "clever" way to hint at which ghost/creature was coming next (the drummer makes loud percussive noises before he appears, etc). They are the darkness, the corruption, the filth. She is light, innocence, purity incarnate, blahblahblah.

Dark Floors was not a terrible film. I prefer my horror to be a bit more tangible- I'm not a fan of the abstract "it was all in her head... or was it!?" kind of psychological horror/thriller unless it's like Jacob's Ladder. Something about sitting through 90 minutes only to come out the other side saying "wait, it was just a dream!?!" really irks me and makes the entire film I just saw completely irrelevant, but if that's your thing, Dark Floors should be fine. I wouldn't say it's great- it would have been better had it had a full story. If we knew who the creatures were (within the story's universe- not who they are in the band) and what the people needed to do or not do to get out alive- the "rules" as it were. A film that fails to tell the story correctly fails as a film, regardless of who the band members are or what country the film was made for.

Sorry, but you can't put the blame on the viewer on this one.