'Dark Forces' Review: Netflix thriller is nauseatingly ghoulish and chilling, not meant for the faint-hearted
'Dark Forces' is a romantic, warm, and feel-good film, all about overcoming your demons and finding true love. Okay not really, we're just messing with you. Well, there is romance in it, but it's really not what you would ever want. True love comes at a price, if at all it does because by the end of the film you are so squeamish that you just want the horror to end. Directed by Bernardo Arellano, the film is every bit creepy and eerie as it promised to be from the trailer. Let's get that point across, straight off the bat. It's your nauseous horror-meet erotic thriller genre, a rare one, and perhaps for good reason. It's not everyone's cup of devilish tea. Is it worth a watch even for those handful of people? That's a tricky question, almost as complicated as the plot of the film itself. But let's try answering that question.
The premise is simple, but the execution is what will drive you insane, almost as much as the protagonist Franco (Tenoch Huerta). He's a renegade criminal and has come to stay at a sinister hotel that you wouldn't even wish on your worst enemies. He's on a mission as he needs to find his sister, Sonia. At the hotel, he is swamped by demonic horrors at night. Make sure you have a strong constitution while watching this film as there is a tendency to feel appallingly nauseous (because this writer did) at certain scenes. The reality and the imagination are interwoven and blurred, and slowly he gets infected with the 'dark forces' prevailing in the hotel. But hey, don't let a couple of demons, devilish electricians get in the way for the need for sex. He finds a woman Rubi (Eréndira Ibarra) who is interested in him, and there's the normal tough guy act, 'I work alone' sorts, while she craves his attention. She's been trapped in the hotel for way too long and the demons are haunting her too. The strange twist involving her at the end might be quite foreseeable to many, but still a twist, nevertheless.
The music steals the show in this eerie and disturbing film and raises gooseflesh. The jump scares are aplenty, and it seems as if the filmmakers had a lot of joy when crafting the creepy lunatics, who are the hotel residents in the film. Pay attention closely (if you can). The unsettling background scores, the disgusting creepy-crawlies are of course present for the shock and thrill factor, to the extent it seems as if the makers got carried away with it, apart from the raw sex scenes. The female characters exist in the film for sexual slavery. In fact, till the end, Rubi seems keen to seduce a man who is 'too tough' to fall for her, but she manages to do so finally.
Is it worth a watch? Well, depends. How okay are with you ghastly snake-like things coming out of people's mouths? Fun tip: If you don't get good vibes at a shady hotel, please run. There have to be better ones somewhere else.
'Dark Forces' is streaming on Netflix for those who are still intent on watching this film.
