This 2011 thriller stars Dennis Quaid, Tony Oller and Aimee Teegarden. Quaid (Innerspace) plays mortician, Ely Vaughn who lost his wife a 2 years prior. There's been rumors of ghosts in his home and teens, Travis (Oller), Abby (Teegarden) and their friends decide to investigate. They discover that Ely not only keeps his deceased wife in his home, but is a psychopath. After one of their friends is killed, Travis and Abby are determined to expose Ely. This isn't a bad thriller that sort of pays homage to Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" and "Rear Window" and Quaid is great in it. I'd give this a view at least once.

As also mentioned from other reviewers there are similarities between Mr. Brooks and this film. If Mr. Brooks is a Crime/Drama/Mystery film, this film cannot be a horror film, because Mr. Brooks has definitely harder scenes as this one. I don't know if the makers of this movie claim that they filmed a horror movie. If yes then it is a really poor horror film and you will be disappointed as a horror movie fan. But if you watch it as a Crime/Thriller it is watchable and not a waste of time. It depends on what your expectation is. In marketing the product must be declared correctly: if you declare horror in a product, horror must be in the product.In the music business there is a genre named easy-listening, translated into the movie business I would say this film is a "easy-watching" film: not bad and not really good.

I was hugely looking forward to "Beneath the Darkness" when it played at the annual Brussels Festival of Fantastic Films during a midnight screening, because I was told – and I eagerly believed – that it was an uncompromising and outrageous horror/thriller that granted Dennis Quaid the opportunity to depict a psychotic and derailed small Texas-town serial killer. Dennis Quaid as a crazed mortician! What avid genre fanatic wouldn't look forward to this? Together with a theater full of enthusiast people, I expected a tremendously high body count, lots of pitch-black humor, perverted undertones and a totally whack Dennis Quaid one-man-show. Things didn't exactly turn out as favorable … I wouldn't go as far to call "Beneath the Darkness" a disastrous film, but it's definitely a bit too ambitious and wannabe intelligent for its own good. Quaid's character Ely Vaughn, the local undertaker who's still highly admired within the community because he used to be a star quarterback in high school, is indeed an utterly disturbed individual but he's not a maniac on a rampage. Quite the contrary, in fact, Ely is a very distinguished person and his dark side only comes to the surface when a couple of school kids decide to sniffle around in his private business. The first five minutes of the film, as well as the final fifteen, are very entertaining and exciting, not coincidentally because these are the only times that Quaid gets to showcase his evil grimaces and madman capacities. Everything in between is just an overlong series of clichéd and derivative situations. Of course nobody believes the teenagers when they're accusing one of the most prominent town members of being a psychopath and obviously the cheerleader beauty will gradually fall for the outsider nerd instead of her cowardly jock boyfriend. And then I'm not even talking about the pointless sub plot of the nerdy kid who still feels responsible for his little sister's death ten years ago and the difficult relationship with his mother. That was completely irrelevant and downright redundant. In spite of being the big star of the picture, Dennis Quaid actually has surprisingly little screen time and – frankly – nearly not enough chances to illustrate the craziness of his character's persona. This is one giant missed opportunity, to say the least.

Where do I begin?? The main reason for me watching this movie is that I am a big fan of Dennis Quaid but his performance in this flick leaves a lot to be desired! Quaid plays the role of the town's mortician and the audience is quickly introduced to the dark side of his character when he takes his first victim within the first few minutes. It is from this point that the movie takes a nose dive! There was absolutely no suspense and if failed in every aspect to put me on the edge of my seat.The majority of the other characters were simply pointless and most of there scenes bared no relevance to the plot. This movie quickly went nowhere and the final minutes (especially the final words from Quaid's character) were simply ridiculous.If you have nothing better to do......still give this a miss!!