Dark Ride (2006)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Sadly Over-hyped

Load of rubbish!!

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

I have just Re-Watched this, I have only seen it once before, about 11 years ago, when it first came out.I could not remember much, so I gave it another go. I really liked the opening scene, thought it was very good, had the 80s vibe to it.Sadly that was the only decent part of it, as the rest of it was Very hard to watch The acting in this, was some of the worst I ever seen.It made it harder to care about anyone, I thought some parts of the movie dragged.I thought the kills were disappointing and the twist at end was so predicable.

Dark Ride is a movie that could have been so much fun to watch. A slasher film in the most cliché possible way. Done by the book. College students going to on spring break, decide to go to a dark ride as a dare, smoke weed, tell a spooky ghost story about what happened in the dark ride, etc, etc. It starts off cliché but yet it starts off strong. I was intrigued and was drawn in. It was building up extremely well. The actors all did well, the set was very neat (think Child's Play 3 final act) and the antagonist was built up to be a very memorable character. It all falls in the third act where the slaughter actually begins. The actors seemed to play college students having fun pretty well but being terrified, and running for the lives, a different story. A lot of their emotion seemed fake. There was a scene where it clearly looked like they were trying to run for their lives, but the actual speed that they were walking in, and in the momentary pauses where one would wait for another to go through something were very unconvincing. And the ending was very disappointing. I didn't mind the "twist" but the way they did it almost seemed too obvious, and even then, it didn't really change anything for the better. The twist didn't make anything more sickening, and the way it ended abruptly made it seem like the twist didn't even have enough time to explain itself. This movie is only for horror movie fans who have nothing to watch. I wouldn't put it on anyone's list of must watch, more of a one watch and your done forever. You could find better.

For a slasher movie, "Dark Ride" really is pretty much okay. The setting was great (a carnival's Haunted House, so in that sense "Dark Ride" reminds us a bit of Tobe Hooper's "Funhouse") and some of the killings were quite memorable. But... I expected a bit more twist-juice in the end. You just know very soon what the obvious twist at the end will be, so I was pretty sure the filmmakers would give us something else. Something more. Something unexpected. But sadly, they didn't. I didn't have as much fun with Dark Ride as I did with, for instance, a movie like the "House Of Wax" re-make, but still, it's a fun ride for slasher fans in general.

I agree with the majority of voters that the movie "Dark Ride" is not exactly a masterpiece. Nevertheless, I think, director Craig Singer has to be thanked for having made the first movie of what is called either "dark ride" or "ghost train" in British English.In this Movie Database, there is a very concise definition of what we are speaking here: " 'Dark ride' is an old term used in the carnival business to describe rides that involve getting in a cart or buggy and traversing a dark, enclosed building designed to have characters or props appear at intervals, designed to surprise or entertain". However, the most important part of a dark ride, besides the maze-like horror cabinet, is forgotten here: the combination of rails and wheel. There are indeed "ghost houses" or "haunted houses" in the form of "walk-throughs", i.e. without carts or buggies driving through. Not only is it amazing that it took decades until the first movie was made about dark rides – a topic that is more than predestined to deliver the background for or like here the center of almost any thinkable form of horror. It is also amazing that the British term "dark ride" is almost unknown in the US – although there are dark rides even in small theme parks (stationary) or on fairgrounds (itinerant). The other British term, "ghost train", is ambiguous: On the one side, it is used for a real train driven or populated by ghosts (like in many movies under this title), or it is used for dark ride, being a literal translation of German "Geisterbahn".Ghost trains or dark rides or haunted houses appear first on German and Dutch fairgrounds in the early 1930ies. Their ancestors were "hollow trains", "scene railways" and generally horror cabinets, which came up in the late 19th century. When fairground business started to decline between the two World Wars, many of the famous German dark rides which were built by the legendary showman Hugo Haase, were sold to America. The best two-floor dark rides or ghost trains came for example to Coney Island where they have been gigantic attractions. However, the fate of these theme-rides has never been written. Why they did not even inspire a movie until 2006, when Singer's "Dark Ride" was released, stays a mystery. Moreover, dark rides hardly ever appear in American standard works about fairground art, although Geoff Warden and Richard Ward displayed in their art history reference work hundreds of pictures of both Europe-imported and US-built dark rides and similar theme-rides. Nowadays, it seems that the once fascinating rides through dark rides have been followed by horror movies under use of extensive special effects. However, watching a movie can never substitute a ride through a horror cabinet. Therefore, dark rides could perhaps be revitalized through using newer forms of horror provided by movies.