Halloween 'Haul' Of Horrors

The Dark Lurking

(2008/Australia)

‘‘Shut up moron. You don’t have the IQ to throw consecutive punches’’

There’s something evil lurking in the dark, it’s locked in deep within an underground complex, and it is multiplying !. The bad news is that many scientists, lab technicians and general labourers are trapped in with this malevolence. The very bad news is that the small team of mercenaries sent in by the military to rescue them don’t stand a chance !.
A deep level complex is the experimental facility for a substance as old as mankind. Human guinea pigs are tested with a serum drawn from this biologically based anomaly. The highest potency results in a messy transformation, mutating the human host into a monstrosity with a compunction to kill. A flesh tearing fiend with an unyielding assault mode far beyond that of normal human exertion.

The mercenaries slip in through the air conditioning vents, arriving at a time of mass hysteria and a feeding furore. The mutations are gestated from their hosts and tearing apart those uninfected. The gears of war brought by the elite professionals are heavy and plentiful, but still barely adequate to suppress the onslaught. Concentrated fire makes pea soup out of the miscreant creatures but general body shots, even removing limbs with bloody aplomb, does not stop these mindless monstrosities.

Creature effect make up is great here. Plague victims with puss oozing boils leaking from scarified features, like microwave tans. With talon clawed hands and a deep rasping rapture that only a mother monster could love. Good old fashioned men in well made monster suits rather than sloppy CGI rendered beasties abound, and that here is definitely a good thing. Mutant mayhem that pays off in naturally rendered movement and creature kill effects that hit the fan like a raspberry red slush puppy. It truly is great fun to witness old school creativity, and this sure is a crowd pleasing sloberknocker, rubber blubber, blood venting ‘B’ movie beauty.
It’s close quarter Aliens (1986) type sets and a dimly lit foreboding atmosphere that keeps the audience on jump alert. Things get even tighter as the mercenaries retrieve a handful of survivors and head back on into the ventilation shafts, this time with pursuing company and a fright factor around every turn.


One of the rescued party is a surviving experimental patient named Lena. She is suffering from blackouts from the serum programme, and is feared like a leper by the others rescued. They suspect that she may turn into one of the creatures at any moment, but her level of experimental treatment far exceeded the doses that turned the others. She is perhaps what the scientists were looking for and may be of great importance to the financiers behind the classified project.


As the mercenaries fight their way up through the complex, stopping off for munitions up take along route naturally, they and those in their protective custody are picked off until only a handful remain. Beyond the surface of the complex, beyond the hemisphere and in orbit of the Earth awaits an orbital nuclear tactical strike weapon of destruction. Its countdown is triggered by a maniacal doctor still working within the facilities lab. He believes he has finally uncovered what it is they have been looking for, and now all evidence of their transgressions to acquire the object of their endeavours must be wiped from the face of the planet. The problem for him is that the remaining mercenaries and rescued cohorts still have something to say about that, along with the mass marauding monsters now on top of them with no where else to turn. Throw into the mix the dawning of Lena’s true genetic nature and the count down itself just may not come in time !.

Evil as timeless as creation is on the verge of resurrection, and its monstrous hordes are abundant within its lair. Prepare for a closure like Lucio Fulci’s Zombie Flesh eaters (1979) meets Luigi Cozzi’s Contamination (1980) by way of Bruno Mattei’s Shocking Dark (1990). All the elements of an Italian gore fest, with lashings of glorious gore and ladles of Action to cheer at. Classic Eighties styled Euro sci fi Action goodness, served up on an Australian barbecue of sticky back ribs and charcoal grilled giblets. Swig along with an ice cold brew or two and The Dark Lurking goes down a treat.

Review Paul Cooke

The Dark Lurking (2008)
Director Gregory Connors
With Aash Aaron, Philippe Deseck,

Ozzie Devrish, Anthony Edwards,

Dirk Fouler & Bret Kennedy