From Jeremy Kibler

Any formulaic setup can work depending on the execution. Director Alex Herron and writer Wolf Kraft’s horror movie Dark Windows takes its characters to a house in the woods (at least it’s not a cabin), only to be stalked and eventually maimed by someone with mean-spirited motives. The difference here is that the victims have done something to almost warrant being targeted. Otherwise, this is pretty dull stuff.

Tilly (Anna Bullard) is grieving the hardest of her friend group over the loss of her best friend Ali (Grace Binford Sheene). It’s understandable, considering they all feel complicit in Ali’s death in a drunk driving accident when Ali was the only sober one. After Tilly is confronted by Ali’s uncle at the memorial, friends Monica (Annie Hamilton) and Peter (Rory Alexander) decide to go away for a weekend and stay at Monica’s grandparents’ farmhouse. When night falls, someone sets up a shrine with Ali’s photo surrounded by candles and windows start being left open. Tilly and Monica just assume it was the other, but of course, someone is lurking around the house and ready to make them pay.

Dark Windows is competently acted and tense in spots but rather unremarkable as this horror-movie setup goes. It’s I Know What You Did Last Summer crossed with a home invasion, particularly The Strangers since this film’s stranger can be inside one moment and be locked out in another. Unfortunately, Herron’s film never rises to the effectiveness of either of those films, even on its own terms. The very bland title is also pretty telling, and it also doesn’t mean much (and is bound to get confused with Dark Shadows and Open Windows).

These three characters on the chopping block aren’t hateful enough to want them dead. Without being fully developed, they’re all written with a fair amount of decency and flaws, which is always appreciated. In particular, Peter has a real, insidious difficulty with drinking, but how Peter, the driver of the accident, got off scot-free is never dealt with or even mentioned. As horror-movie characters are often mocked for their bad decision-making, it’s not the off charts here apart from one glaring exception. When Tilly assures Monica and Peter that someone is definitely inside the house and tells them they need to leave, they go back inside to check. Without exaggeration, Pete decides the coast is clear for them after only just checking two rooms in a pretty spacious two-story house.

Based on slasher-movie rules that actually play fair with an audience, the culprit isn’t a huge surprise, but the remaining ten minutes are. Disturbing and merciless, this masked killer really wants to punish these kids. In spite of that shocking novelty, Dark Windows isn’t really worth opening.

Rating: 2/5

Dark Windows hits select theaters and On Demand on August 18th, 2023.

Follow Jeremy at @JKiblerFilm