After Dark Horrorfest: Crazy Eights [DVD]

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Six people are brought together at the funeral of a childhood friend. While settling the estate, they discover a , which leads them on a search for a long forgotten time , at the request of their dead friend. What they discover reawakens repressed childhood traumas and leads them on a journey through their long abandoned childhood home: a home with a terrible secret and a mysterious dead girl who will lead them to their strange es. .com ---- A solid cast of name actors enliven this indie ghost story from the 2007 After Dark Horror Fest. Dina Meyer, Frank Whaley, Traci Lords and Gabrielle Anwar are among a group of friends directed to an abandoned home by instructions left in a will by a deceased companion; naturally, they become trapped inside the structure, which is revealed to be a former hospital where behavioral experiments were conducted in prior decades on scores of children. That the group should have a connection to these experiments should come as no surprise to viewers, nor should the fact that the hospital's vengeful spirits plan to keep their secret safe by eliminating the intruders in Ten Little Indians fashion. In fact, there's very little fresh material for horror fans to gnaw on in Crazy Eights: The dialogue is leaden and the plot constantly forces one or more cast member to irrationally wander alone into the darkness in order to meet their e. Director James K. Jones should be credited for bringing a professional and atmospheric look to his production, and for some restraint in the gore department, but the picture as a whole treads overly familiar territory and is therefore not particularly frightening. The cast certainly tries hard, especially Whaley and Lords. The sole extra is a handful of webisodes that follow the search for Miss HorrorFest 2007. -- Paul Gaita