Movies that are too dark to see what is going on **

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Mirrorblade.1, Jan 25, 2015.

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  1. Mirrorblade.1

    Mirrorblade.1 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Movies that too dark to see what is going on.
    1.The Relic a great movie would even mad better is there was some light
    on it and the creature I seen the creature in cinefex magazine
    and have model kit of of it . What a waste of Stan Winstons
    Studios effort. That director was clueless.

    2. Godzilla 2014 what hell happened here?
    The last sequence it felt like somebody turned of the light by accident
    during editing?

    3. Alien Vs Predator Requiem this was dark compared
    to what I seen in the theater. This fox home video doing.
    There complaints about this .
     
  2. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Michael Mann's The Keep has been cited as the "darkest horror film ever made," and word was that he hated the visual effects so much, he opted to darken the hell out of it rather than let audiences see how bad the effects were. Roger Ebert excoriated the film for being too dark.

    I have worked on a few films were I had some mild argument with the filmmakers on how dark they were pushing the levels. China Beach was the darkest TV series I ever worked on, but there have been some dark ones out there. A pal of mine in the 1980s did the timing on Eraserhead, and he told me that David Lynch was terrified that audiences would see how cheap his sets were, so they brought everything down by about 75% to make it ultra dark. I think it was embarrassingly bad in terms of darkness, but that's me. Interesting film.
     
    GuildX700 likes this.
  3. Rocker

    Rocker Senior Member

    Location:
    Ontario, Canada
    I agree about AVPR, but I've never had any trouble seeing what's going on in the other two. :shrug:
     
  4. Mark Nelson

    Mark Nelson Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    I recall PACIFIC RIM's battle scenes that were set underwater...at night...to be particularly impenetrable. Seeing it in 3D with the glasses' dimming effect didn't help matters, either.
     
  5. Maggie

    Maggie like a walking, talking art show

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    I have heard this complaint a lot, but I think it varied by theater. The presentation I saw was crystal clear, and it looks decent on DVD too.
     
    wayneklein likes this.
  6. The Wanderer

    The Wanderer Seeker of Truth

    Location:
    NYC
    Not a movie, but I can only watch "Boardwalk Empire" in dark of night.
     
    Rufus McDufus and audiomixer like this.
  7. The Pinhead

    The Pinhead KING OF BOOM AND SIZZLE IN HELL

    The second one from the Bourne trilogy. Hate when they're shot with the ¨dark treatment¨. Is this some kind of shaity arty trend ?
     
  8. Veltri

    Veltri ♪♫♫♪♪♫♫♪

    Location:
    Canada
    David Fincher's Seven was very dark. I remember the re-released DVDs at the time were colour corrected to make things more visible.
     
  9. hvbias

    hvbias Midrange magic

    Location:
    Northeast
    Prior to reading what vidiot wrote, I thought the darkness in Eraserhead was a deliberate aesthetic choice. IMO it suits the film.
     
    bopdd likes this.
  10. lugnut2099

    lugnut2099 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Missouri
    It's looked fine ever since it hit DVD, but I remember renting several different VHS versions of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre back in the day, and every time they were just super-dark, practically unwatchable messes. I never actually felt like I really saw the movie 'til the DVD came out because those old prints were so godawful.
     
    SonOfAlerik and driverdrummer like this.
  11. Vahan

    Vahan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Glendale, CA, USA
    Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1987)
     
    milankey and driverdrummer like this.
  12. inperson

    inperson Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    I wish the climax of Taxi Driver wasn't made so dark.
     
  13. The Last of The Mohicans. Wasn't that dark in theaters nor for its first DVD release.
     
    thegage likes this.
  14. Dave B

    Dave B Senior Member

    Location:
    Nokomis, FL
    Anyone remember the Robert Altman film, "McCabe and Mrs. Miller"? When I saw it in the theater, I thought something was wrong with the projector. Seems Altman was trying to use natural light as an effect but some scenes are so dim you can barely see what's going on.
     
  15. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    First film I thought of !

    For Eraserhead, heck...the stuff in the dark wasn't significant enough (at least as far as I could see/couldn't ;))....but only added in the creepy mysteriousness. The material that you COULD see was what it was all about IMO.

    [​IMG]

    Like those old Alfred Hitchcock films...the dark B&W allowed for more mental involvement and atmosphere. Ultra contrast !
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 27, 2015
  16. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    I saw Tim Burton's "Batman" at a drive in. The last five minutes were impossible to make out.
     
  17. Lucidae

    Lucidae AAD

    Location:
    Australia
    The Blu-ray? Yeah it's far too dark. Luckily I found a fan-edit online that fixes the brightness and makes for a much better viewing experience.
     
  18. T'mershi Duween

    T'mershi Duween Forum Resident

    Location:
    Y'allywood
    Have you seen the new Criterion Blu Ray? It's stunning. Just absolutely beautiful cinematography. Sharp, detailed and as rich as a Fellini film.

    The 80's print for VHS release was a murky, blurry mess. Way too dark. The Blu Ray is not.
     
    Felix Martinez, kevywevy and Vidiot like this.
  19. John B Good

    John B Good Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    NS, Canada
    I find something similar on a lot of hard to follow super-fast action scenes on TV.
     
  20. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yeah, I think it would now be possible to simply defocus the background and not have to darken it to total murk. We frequently will sneak in and change depth-of-field in order to make viewers concentrate on the actors and ignore the background.
     
  21. Mirrorblade.1

    Mirrorblade.1 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    The Howling, too dark for most of the movie
     
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I worked on the original Friday the 13th in the early 1980s, and that was dark as ****. I killed myself trying to get any kind of image out of the film elements we had, and it was just shot cheaply with very few lights and underexposed. If we had had grain reduction back then we could've saved it; I have no doubt that a recent transfer could look OK, but trust me: there was no detail in the film at all.
     
    Roger Meadows likes this.
  23. Torontotom

    Torontotom Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I always thought Looking for Mr. Goodbar had some dimly lit scenes. Of course, it was well suited to the film which itself was very dark.
     
  24. quadjoe

    quadjoe Senior Member

    Have you seen Into the Woods? We went a couple of weeks ago, and I found it to be almost unwatchable, it was so dark. However, it is showing at our local Carmike Cinema, and that particular theater has fallen on hard times, so I'm hoping that they're just trying to get as much life out of their projection lamps as they can. I liked the film, but if the Blu-ray release is likely to be that dark, I'll probably pass.
     
  25. Roger Meadows

    Roger Meadows Active Member

    Vidiot,
    What other horror films have you worked on?
     
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