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.

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.

At the end of the movie it is easy to see this as an attempt to be Psycho meets Mr. Brooks. Dennis Quaid plays against type as Eli a mortician with a secret, and a dark compulsion. He can kill with no remorse and he has the body of his deceased wife in his house. Unfortunely Quaid is one of the weaknesses of the film. He lacks the chilling menace that Costner had in Mr. Brooks and just comes across as a psycho.The story is lacking in exposition and caused me some annoyance as the movie progressed. Why wait to the end and shoehorn in a ton of explanation in an unnatural fashion, which takes away from the twist at the end. The twist should be the penny that drops to link all the treads together ala The Sixth Sense (the best example of this).The best part of the film would have to be the young cast. The four friends are great together, very believable as friends. The lead, Travis, is great and reminds me of a young Christopher Gorham (Harpers Island).The story itself is good and entertaining, unfortunately it is lacking in the execution.

Movie is quite good. Do not see why most people react so badly. Most characters are played reasonably good. There is normal amount of thriller in here. Do not compare this to the other movies. It is great all by itself. And DQ makes it even better. It is watchable and not boring. There are much worse movies out there.Script has some unevenness but nevertheless this is not notable while watching the movie. Those are kids you know. What do you expect them to do? And they finish it all quite successfully at the end. And besides, many movies now have many stereotypes in them, because there are so many movies made to he day, that it is hard not to repeat something from the other... IMHO.