Well, he shouldn't have gotten her vaccinated.
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| Some Original Ideas Should Stay Just Ideas |
It starts with Sarah, the autistic daughter, getting a brain scan. She starts saying "Not again" repeatedly.
I'm guessing that the twist is that this is an endless loop. The movie wants you to think that she says "not again" because she has had so many brain scans before. But she is really saying "not again" because this is the start of the endless loop
Sarah freaks out and the electricity flickers on and off. She asks for a red crayon. Her dad runs into the room and yanks her out of the machine.
I love hospitals that don't secure the doors during brain scans. I also love it when people can walk in without removing all the metal from their bodies and not kill their daughter.
I'm guessing that the twist is that she has some sort of supernatural powers. That's why her brain scan causes the electricity to flicker. She's going to kill everyone at the prom by the end.
Sarah asks for a red crayon. Sarah's dad wheels her out of the room. She draws:
See, it's symbolic of the endless loop. I think that her asking for a red crayon is symbolic of something else. Not sure
a strange man walks past and touches her hair creepily. she drops the crayon.
"I want the red crayon
I want the red crayon"
The doctor asks whether her dad has considered taking Sara to an institution. The dad responds with probably the greatest line that will be in this movie
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| "I've considered taking her to another hospital." |
Sarah's dad puts her to bed.
Sarah: Not again!
It's an endless cycle.
Instead of waiting for the next day, Sarah's dad takes her to the elevator. She draws with an black crayon. She asks for the red crayon.
It's an endless cycle. The red crayon is the somehow connected to breaking the cycle. Maybe she has to draw the cycle in red crayon, not black
I figured out the twist five minutes in.
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| Sarah's abstract representation of the title |
A nurse tries to convince Sarah's dad to let her stay and try a new drug
Dad: I know what's best for my daughter.
Clearly not, as he doesn't give her a red crayon.
They get into the elevator with four other people. An old man, a token black character, and a man in a suit holding a teddy bear,. As it descends, the elevator breaks down. Of course it does.
One man named Tobias has a heart attack.The nurse tries to revive him. The man in the suit calls for help.
Tobias starts breathing and The lights come back on immediately.
I think that the twist will be that Tobias has supernatural powers.
They get off on the sixth floor. Nobody else is on the floor. The air-conditioning is off
There had better be a great reason for this to happen. I don't get why the nurse who actually works there
Sarah spies a shadow behind a door. probably the creepy man who is actually a monster.
A noise. The token black character sees a pulsing light and trail of papers leading up to a door. He opens the door and sees a copy machine with the top up.
The scariest part of this horror movie is how much that hospital wastes on electricity.
Just reflect on the fact that this horror movie used a copy machine as a scare.
The nurse picks up the papers from the floor and flips through them
They sure do look like pictures of Dark Floors (2003).
This situation is creepy, but not creepy enough for the nurse and father to continue the conversation about continuing the medication. The father apparently wasn't aware that his daughter was taking a new drug. She says that they have to test for epilepsy and that discontinuation could be fatal.
The father hears a noise and thinks that investigating it is gar more important than his daughter potentially dying.
A girl in an electric wheelchair rams into a corner repeatedly.
The nurse touches her shoulder and her head flops backwards to reveal gouged-out eyes. (Bloody picture, click to reveal)
The father turns Sarah's head away. The nurse puts a blanket over the dead girls face.
Tobias: She who has no eyes sees everything. Makes no difference, they are at all times. Not me, they can't see me.
The black guy can't contact anyone.
Sarah draws a creepy woman.
This is an impressive number of cliches for such a short time period.
They get to a stairwell. The father picks up Sarah and they begin climbing down, leaving the wheelchair at the top.
A sudden pounding from below. The characters look down. A BANG, a flash of light, and then some bloods spurts up, splattering some people's faces. Conveniently, this made the wheelchair roll down to their level. The father sets Sarah in the wheelchair and they all escape to the fourth floor landing. Someone places a crutch under the door.
Man in Suit: What the hell was that.
Tobias: Well, there's only one hell.
Seriously, the hospital is probably Hell. Sarah is stuck in an eternal loop. This is so predictable.
Also, the man in the suit dropped his teddy bear. I had to go back and add this detail in because it will be important later. This plot is so intricate!
The nurse condescendingly tells the father, Ben, that a bright light or a loud noise can trigger a seizure. Yeah, Ben. Think of that the next time you bring your daughter to hospital where eye-gouging monsters emit loud noises and bright lights
A pounding at the door. Sarah takes off down the hallway. The other characters follow. It's almost like she knows what to do because she's been there before.
Lights flicker over the crutch holding the door in place.
Everyone gets to a control room. The security guard looks at the computer monitors and declares the hospital empty. The man in a suit tries to announce whether they are over the microphone,but the security guard cuts him off.
Sarah looks back at a door.
I think that Sarah was cast based on who could look over her shoulder the most creepily. Anyway, she goes through the doors. They open without her pushing them. So now she's telekinetic as well?
The nurse points to the TV screens at some people walking on the third floor.
Ben has lost track of Sarah. Why is he so bad at parenting? Tobias points him through the doors and Ben approach Sarah from behind. It's supposed to be reminiscent of the scene were the girl had bloody eyes, but it is obvious that Sarah is fine. She's in an endless loop, remember?
Ben saves Sarah and the group walk into the main floor. The radio and television turn on repeat the same two-second clips over and over. Everyone's cell-phone rings.
Sarah and Tobias place their hands over their ears.
At nineteen minutes into this horror movie about monsters, there are still no monsters onscreen. That's about to to change. a ghost forms behind a glass door.
Honestly...I'm disappointed.
The security guard remembers the training he did for this particular situation and shoots the glass a few times.
It doesn't break, so the ghost helpfully shrieks and shatters the glass door, the glass of the doors next to it, and the television. Ben picks up Sarah and they run away.
Actual dialogue from Dark Floors (2003)
Ben: This is not happening
Man In Suit: What was that?
The ghost chases the characters down a hall, breaking windows and creating a ton of jobs.
Once cornered, the security guard tries to shoot the ghost. It doesn't work. Instead, the nurse accidentally bumps into a machine that turns on and emits radiation that banishes the ghost. Convenient. Also convenient that the radiation had no negative effects on them.
Everyone goes back to the room where Sarah's wheelchair is.
This entire movie is:
1. Wander around dark halls.
2. See something dangerous.
3. Pick up Sarah and run.
4. Escape.
5. Go back to wheelchair.
Meh, at least it's only an hour long.
Ben asks why Tobias covered his ears before the ghost came. And before Sarah did Tobias implies that the monsters are here because of Sarah.
Tobias: The emptiness
I think he is also in the endless loop.
The characters theorize that they are either dreaming or hallucinating. The man in the suit walks away.
Well, he's dead. Good. I didn't know his name.
Sarah draws some more.
The man in the suit presses the button for the elevator and waits. He looks behind him. Then he enters the elevator. The floor of the elevator makes noise, as if there are monsters underneath. The man sticks his hands into the elevator doors and tries to escape.
Dark Floors goes through all the motions of a horror movie, even if none of it resonates.
That was my attempt at complimenting this movie.
The security guard and Ben run to the elevator at the sound of scream. They keep the elevator door open . A monster comes out from beneath the floor.
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| This probably violates the ADA about three different ways. |
The security guard tries to knock out the monster with a fire extinguisher, but hits the man instead. He tries again and gets the monster. How did he get the job?
Tobias holds a gun up to his head, claiming he has done this a hundred times.
So they aren't even trying to keep the endless loop a twist.
Sarah: Tobias, I promise you will see.
Dark Floors is half a generic horror film and half obvious clues to a twist.
Ben and the security guard rescue the man in the suit, but the monster wake up and slashes his leg as they they escape.
Ben looks at Sarah's drawing of the elevator and asks whether she has seen it before. Sarah wants the red crayon.
Give your daughter the red crayon.
Seriously, give your daughter the damn red crayon!
The nurse patches up the man in the suit's leg. Ben points out that they are probably not in a mass psychosis.
They leave. The nurse tries an intercom and gets a response! Sarah does her stare and the intercom shuts off.
I'm assuming Sarah has some sort of telekinesis. She made the doors open, remember? and therefore she made the intercom shut off. Why? Maybe in a previous loop, answering the intercom had bad consequences. Or Maybe she is bitter about the red crayon.
They go down another floor.
Another Dark Floor.
Randall, the security guard, finds a blocked exit. he picks up a chair and smashes the exit open. Oops, it's a brick wall. That scene was useful.
Sarah stares creepily at a water jug and the water moves around
Floor 3. This movie is like watching someone else play a video game. They even label the levels!
A hallway of corpses. The nurse recognizes on of them as "Walter," Tobias picks up a recording device and presses a play button
"The only sensible solution is to give up the girl, give up the girl, give up the girl, give up the girl"
Tobias says it is up to Ben to decide what to do.Now, why does "the girl" necessarily refer to Sarah? The movie is almost hallway over and I'm really losing faith in any explanation
Whatever, a random monster breaks of a door. They run away through another door and block it with a vending machine. The monster breaks through the door.
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| Ghosts or monsters? I need some consistency in my B-movies. |
Randall tries to shoot the monster, but it just kills him.
Oh my god, this movie came out in 2003 and the black guy still died first.
Randal and the monster just disappear after this.
Ben, Sarah, the nurse, and the man in a suit stare out the window at the city. Some sort of odd light is in the sky.
Sarah knows what is happening, and she probably would tell them if she had her red crayon.
The nurse gets another call from the intercom. Turns out that the call is the same as the call she made earlier. So the nurse called herself in the future.
I'm glad this endless loop thing isn't being hidden.
The nurse figures that this is just a parallel dimension and not something unrealistic like time travel.
The man in the suit points out that all the clocks and watches have stopped. It would be funny if, at the end, they discover that there isn't some metaphysical reason behind this. All the clocks and watches just ran out of battery at the exact same time.
Ben and the nurse go for a walk. The nurse tells Ben that Sarah knows something and is probably the reason for everything.
Ben deflects and tells the nurse to check out a random corpse. This corpse has a gun, so Ben takes it. Guns have worked so well in the past.
The man in the suit asks Sarah what she is drawing. Sarah shoots him a death glare.
Ben goes back to the fake exit/brick wall and attempts to break through it with a hammer. We learn that nurse has a four year-old son. Dark Floors (2003) is actually attempting character development.
A noise from above. Ben shoots upwards. Because of course. A teddy bear falls to the ground.
This is the payoff for dropping the teddy bear.
I had to look this up. The man carrying the teddy bear was from an earlier time loop. Ben shot upwards, his bullet went through time, and he hit the man. Makes sense.
At this point, everyone has figured out that the monsters want Sarah. Johnson figures that he might as well just sacrifice her and get the rest of them out safely. He wheels Sarah to the middle of a hallway and calls out for the monsters to take her. Tobias tries to interfere, but Johnson punches him
Ben and the nurse approach two skeletons...hugging?
At some point, Ben and Tobias set up a two-way radio system. Don't know when, don't know how.
Johnson kills Tobias. Sarah is bored
Ben and the nurse rush in. Johnson grabs the wheelchair to push, but Sarah moves the wheelchair... with her mind.
You know what, fine. This movie can do anything it wants and I won't complain.
And then a giant sand monster walks past Sarah and attacks Johnson.
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| Best-lit frame I could find. |
I think that Sarah has some control over the monsters.
The monsters jam a hand inside Johnson, grabs an organ, and pulls it out. The gore is decent.
The most positive thing I have said about this movie so far is that one gore effect was decent.
Ben kills the monster with a gurney. Sarah draws some more. Ben dismisses his autistic child's artwork. Be a better parent, Ben!
Ben, the nurse, and Sarah go to Tobias's corpse. The nurse remarks that it looks as if Tobias has been
dead for a week. Time loop and everything. They grab the other end of the two-way radio.
They can't get down the stairs because it's a dead-end.
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| ADA violation? |
Ben asks Sarah if she can draw the way out of the hospital. Without her red crayon. The nurse finds a way through the second floor.
Ben and the nurse look for supplies and Sarah vanishes. I really dislike Sarah. She ruins everything.
Ben and the Nurse decide to split up to look for Sarah, because that always goes well. Each take a two-way radio
The nurse ducks under a table to hide from a monster. She kills it with defibrillator.
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| Hospital-based horror films should always have a defibrillator kill. |
Ben rushes through a door to the emergency and enters a dreamlike hospital filled with people. He tries to touch some, but his hand goes right through them.
The radio buzzes. Ben tells the nurse that he is in front of room 235. The nurse says she is also in front of room 235.
So Ben is in some ethereal dimension version of the hospital, while the nurse is in the monster-ridden version of the hospital. The pathway between them is an emergency room door.
This is why health-care costs are so out-of-control.
I've been (relatively) lenient on this movie so far. I have to make a small complaint. How do radio waves cross dimensions? The screenwriter never thought of that, did they?
Ben leaves the ethereal hospital through the emergency room door and finds Sarah in front of the elevator. He approaches her from behind. Where have I seen this before?
The sand monster suddenly appears and attacks Ben.
These monsters are clearly protecting Sarah, From Ben? And what was with the girl with the gouged-out eyes? Was she a younger version of Sarah? Why couldn't I just watch an hour of people fighting monsters in a hospital?
Q: What is the worst way to resolve this?
A: No idea, but in the movie, Tobias comes up and stabs the monster.
Tobias is still alive. Somehow. He kills the monster
Ben talks to Sarah. Sarah tells him
"It has to stop."
Ben replies not to worry, as there's only about ten minutes before the movie ends.
The elevator opens, A skeletal monster runs towards them. Sarah, Ben and the nurse run into the elevator. The doors close.
Ben tries to get them to floor one, but the elevator skips onto the morgue.
God damn it, this is why hospitals need regular elevator inspctions,
They get off and walk through the morgue. Room for one more, honey.
The ghost that they supposedly killed towards the beginning of the movie jumps up and slashes the nurse's leg. Or maybe it's a different ghost but crew didn't make another design.
Now the nurse and Sarah both need to use the wheelchair.
Excuse me, that is against hospital policy.
Suddenly the clock starts ticking and the corpses around them come to life. Of course. I should have seen that coming. The nurse, Ben, and Sarah escape into another room. Then the zombies enter that room, so Ben and Sarah run out into the garage. The nurse tries to, but her wheelchair gets stuck.
Hospitals, make your morgues accessible. Do you want this to happen?
The doors slam shut and monsters kill the nurse. Then dark...shadow breaks the windows.
Ben and Sarah hop into a truck with keys in it and drive. The car crashes
Sarah: It's here. It's here. Again. Again
The darkness approaches and the truck starts again. At this point, there is an escape scene in a car against darkness.
Suddenly, a monster forms in front of the car. This isn't just any generic monster. This is the big, main, generic monster.
Ben drives to the end of the garage and looks back. The monster is gone.
Sarah: What's happens will happen. etc.
Sarah: Bedabye baby, sleep tight, don't let those bedbugs bite. I love you. Goodnight.
I lied when I said that this movie couldn't surprise me anymore.
So did Ben let Sarah die in the test at the beginning and her spirit is haunting him
Ben steps into the darkness and it starts to swallow him up.
Sarah: Sure you don't want to hold on for another second, baby?
The generic monster tries to hug Sarah, but Sarah says she wants to go home because she "cant live in darkness"
She was living in darkness through most the movie.
Cut back to the hospital. and Sarah waking up in the machine. Of course.
The entire red crayon thing led up to her using a blue crayon.
Seriously, give your daughter a damn red crayon!
When the man talks to her and we hear what he says this time.
"Sarah, I don't feel cold anymore."
So....there were a few more twists than I expected. Sarah is clearly angry that her dad put her through all those tests. I guess she created the monsters to protect herself from her dad. The main monster was her...depression? She thought she had to kill her depression, but instead she had let the depression swallow up her dad. But the depression also led to death, although she made a deal at end that represents...
Dark Floors (2008) had a couple good gore shots, so the movie is good.
I learned later that all the monsters were members of the Finnish band Lordi. This is some misguided promotional movie.
This is one of the few movie I consider so bad it's good. I think it's because it combines so many conflicting elements. It is simultaneously a bad horror film and an art-house film. The script is terrible, but the actors do a great job delivering the lines.
In conclusion, give your daughter the red crayon.
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