Ominous October - Dark Glasses (2022)

Streaming Service: Shudder
Movie Name/Year: Dark Glasses (2022)
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Length: 1h 26min
Rating: Unrated
Production/Distribution: Alamode Film, Canal+, Ciné+, Cinobo, Getaway Films, Lumix Media, Ministero della Cultura, NonStop Entertainment, NOS Audiovisuais, Panda Lichtspiele Filmverleih, Pierrot Le Fou, Rai Cinema, Regione Lazio, Russian Report, Shudder, Sky, Urania Pictures S.r.l., Vision Distribution, Wild Bunch International
Director: Dario Argento
Writer: Dario Argento, Franco Ferrini
Actors: Ilenia Pastorelli, Asia Argento, Andrea, Gherpelli, Mario Pirrello, Maria Rosaria Russo, Gennaro Iaccarino, Andrea Zhang
 
Blurb from IMDb: Diana, a young woman who lost her sight, finds a guide in a Chinese boy named Chin. Together they will track down a dangerous killer through the darkness of Italy.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
I think Dario Argento (Creepers, Opera, Deep Red) put all the horror tropes from the 80s into a bag, picked them out blind folded then wrote a movie around what he pulled. I was seriously hoping to get something a bit better, especially from Argento. Then again, most of his best works are from the 70s and 80s. Maybe I should have expected this.
 
I’ll admit that the worst of my fears were circumvented. Whenever there’s a story written with a specific disability in mind, you need to worry about how it’s going to be handled. The trailer for Dark Glasses made me worry about how they would represent blind people. I think it could have done better, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.
 
I did think that some of the scenes going into how the protagonist learned to navigate her life as a newly blind person were decent.
 

The scene with the first kill was also bad ass. It gave me the impression that there would be some body horror and a slasher feel. The rest of the flick didn’t live up to that promise though. There wasn’t much body horror after that except for the tiniest amount at the end.
 
All-in-all, Dark Glasses was basic. It was a trope-filled, slow, disjointed film. Definitely not one I would choose to watch again.
 
If you plan to check it out, it will be available on Shudder this Thursday, October 13.
 

Cat’s Point of View:
When a trailer opens with the statement that the film you are about to watch was created by a country’s “Master of Horror,” it sets a couple of expectations in motion.
 
When we watched the trailer for Dark Glasses prior to putting together October’s Top 20 list, there were some red flags in the teaser that pointed to potential issues. There was a concern about the perception of those with vision impairment, and whether the crux of the horror would be based on that concept. I’m generally quick to play devil’s advocate and lean to the optimistic side of things. I guessed that it was a perception the trailer put forward rather than the actual plot of the movie. I was somewhat correct, there. I do, however, remain irked with the amount revealed by trailers these days. At least it didn’t give away everything this time.
 
Unfortunately, while the newfound vision impairment of the protagonist wasn’t at the core of Dark Glasses’ issues – it certainly had them in spades.
 
My points of contention with Dark Glasses came from the entirety of the rest of the movie. It was just clunky. The introduction segment was far longer than it needed to be. There was nearly 6-minutes of practically nothing. If I were really grasping at straws I could maybe write some of it off as building tension from a ‘what the hell is going on’ perspective, or even the symbolism of celestial events. It just felt pointless and had me looking at the runtime because it felt like forever.
 

When the story got moving, it was somewhat compelling – but felt a little stilted all the same. I felt some emotion for the characters involved, but also had a lot of eye-rolling going on. I don’t think I fully recovered from my initial annoyance if I’m honest. I didn’t quite connect with all of the practical effects, either – mostly at the end.
 
Bless their hearts, they tried.
 
I do have one other positive to offer for Dark Glasses, believe it or not. I didn’t have problems following along, as I sometimes do when I haven’t really connected with a subtitled movie. Perhaps I was more invested than I thought I was, or it made enough sense for me to piece things together without feeling like I was struggling to read a book and watch something at the same time.
 
Dark Glasses does fit into our theme of ominous and chilling films to partake of in October. It wouldn’t, however, be at the top of my list of recommendations… if there at all.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 50%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – None
Metascore – 45%
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score –5.0/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 1.5/5
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 2.5/5
 
Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: R
 
Movie Trailer: