Editorials
Ranking All of the Dark Castle Entertainment Horror Films!
6. Gothika (2003)
Gothika was Dark Castle’s first foray into serious horror, but it was still panned by nearly every critic at the time of its release. It’s actually a pretty clever psychological thriller that sees Halle Berry (fresh off her Oscar win for Monster’s Ball) committed to the very institution she works at after murdering her husband. The film probably didn’t need its supernatural twist (a twist that requires a lot more suspension of disbelief than the movie actually earns) but the cast, which includes Penelope Cruz, Robert Downey, Jr. and John Carrol Lynch, elevate the material.
5. Splice (2010)
Vincenzo Natali’s Splice is arguably the most polarizing film Dark Castle ever put out (it’s also the best-reviewed by critics but received a D CinemaScore from audiences), but even if you’re not a fan you can’t deny the sheer boldness of the thing. Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody deliver fantastic performances as genetic engineers who splice human and animal DNA in an attempt to revolutionize science. Splice asks a lot of big questions and the answers it gives may not satisfy everyone, but it is a smarter-than-average sci-fi horror film with a truly bonkers ending that has to be seen to be believed.
4. The Hills Run Red (2009)
You wouldn’t think that a direct-to-DVD slasher film with a title that is clearly ripping off Wes Craven’s infamous film The Hills Have Eyes (and Alexandre Aja’s remake, which was released just three years earlier) would be any good, but you would be wrong. Dave Parker’s The Hills Run Red is an enjoyable, gory homage to 80s slashers and filled with enough meta humor to appease even the most cynical horror fan. This isn’t high art we’re talking about here, it’s just really, really fun. The film follows a group of film fanatics (including Salem’s Janet Montgomery) who journey into the backwoods to find a print of a notorious snuff film that was thought to have been lost forever. Most of the characters are insufferable, but they appropriately meet their demise by the film’s main villain Babyface. It’s a shame that more horror fans didn’t catch on to The Hills Run Red when it was released. It’s not great, but it’s damn entertaining.
3. House of Wax (2005)
I’ve said plenty about House of Wax in the past, but for good reason: it’s actually a really good movie! You can’t even hate Paris Hilton in the film because she does exactly what is required of her. Aside from that, the set design and attention to detail from the production crew is simply astounding. The acting is decent. The script has its issues (it’s maybe about 20 pages/minutes too long), but the film never tries to be something it isn’t. It’s an amusing time at the movies and one of the better slashers we have been offered in the new millennium.
(Totally unrelated, but I just realized that the “wax” in the poster looks more like a certain bodily fluid than actual wax. What do you think?)
2. House on Haunted Hill (1999)
Dark Castle Entertainment’s producing debut was William Malone’s star-studded remake of William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill. The remake upped the gore factor significantly and focuses more on special effects than character development, but the cast (which includes a hammy Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Ali Larter, Bridgette Wilson, Taye Diggs, Paul Galagher and Chris Kattan) more than makes up for it. Like all of Dark Castle’s films, there is not a lot of substance in House on Haunted Hill, but it’s a delightful house of frights with some truly creepy moments (that face removal is such a great visual). Sure, the fact that the characters keep splitting up is unbelievable, but you wouldn’t have a movie if the characters didn’t make incredibly stupid decisions! This is one of the last great horror films of the 90s (I’m not joking).
1. Orphan (2009)
Jaume Collet-Serra went from House of Wax to Orphan (he also directed this year’s surprisingly good shark movie The Shallows), Dark Castle’s best film to date. The marketing behind Orphan was ingenious. Focussing on Esther’s (Isabelle Fuhrman, a revelation) secret got butts into seats and it became the sleeper hit of the summer of 2009, earning $41.5 million on a $20 million budget. Vera Farmiga adds a much-needed dose of humanity to the film as the grieving mother. At 123 minutes, the film is a little too long, but the twist ending almost makes up for it (it’s a doozie). Serra’s direction is sleek but not distracting, and David Leslie Johnson’s script wisely focuses on character development over cheap shocks (though it does have that oft-criticized narrative trap of devolving into a slasher by its end). No one would say any Dark Castle film is great cinema, but on a pure enjoyment level, Orphan knocks it out of the park.
How would you rank Dark Castle’s films? Do you agree with our ranking? Let us know in the comments below!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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