The "hero" of this movie is an 80-year-old park ranger who solves all problems by cracking a whip. The bad guys are a group of four Toltec zombies wearing hilarious masks. Except one. One of them looks like a party dude who does nothing but skillfully flip tomahawks in his hands. Spoiler alert (this movie was already pretty spoilt, though):The "plot" is four thirtysomething college girls rent a house together. The house has no phone and they don't have cars. Said house is located on a plot of land where some Toltec wizards are buried. They come to life and attack* the girls. Eventually, the girls kill 3 of them, and the fourth one ends up having a whip-off with the 80-year-old park ranger, which ends when the ranger whips the zombie's head off. *Attack = stand near them and shake and make grunting sounds while the girls scream50% of the move is people complaining repeatedly and taking things that are neatly arranged and tossing them around. 25% is people explaining things to each other so the audience knows what's going on. The other 25% is comical chasing, grunting, and screaming. And whip-cracking. Dear Lord, the whip-cracking!Along the way, the zombies kill a few guys and two of the girls. That sentence is actually more exciting and scary than the actual death scenes. Not to mention once the characters are killed, you completely forget they ever existed. I put this movie somewhere above Suburban Sasquatch and below Birdemic in cinematic quality, plot, and writing.

The beginning title cards make 'The Dark Power' look like it might be a well-made nostalgic campy horror film, but after the first ten or so minutes, one will struggle with the film for a while, lying in wait for the actual story to unfold itself. Alas, there isn't really any very good excuse for a plot to be found here. Instead, just classic 80's camp filled with scantily-clad girls the audience wishes would get naked (but don't, save for one scene), and a bunch of oblivious wops who the audience begs the filmmakers to kill off immediately, but instead lie around throwing empty beer cans and smoking cigarettes.This isn't to say that the film itself is bad, our characters are just pretty terrible, typical non-actors, but their dialogue at times seems to transcend their acting abilities. The infamous Lash La Rue who gets everyone excited about this film hardly makes an appearance at all, but is noteworthy as producer. He comes in at the end, complete with trademark 1950's Western movie soundtrack.This is a sometimes fun amateur B-flick for damn sure, and reminds me of other well-made crap films I have seen in recent times such as 'Winterbeast', 'Zaat', and 'The Boogens'. Enjoyable enough for those with the attention span to tolerate generally well-made awful films. And if you are still commenting to yourself about the hokey costumes, trust me, there is worse out there.Lots of Budweiser references, maybe have a few of those and the film won't seem like 78 minutes of intense bass and muddled dialogue. Definitely worth the watch for bad film geeks.THE DARK POWER -----6/10.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow us to introduce to you …. The Toltecs! This ancient Latin American tribe, even preceding the Aztecs, supposedly had the most malevolent and bloodthirsty sorcerers, yet they get their asses whooped by a couple of college floozies and a one-hundred-and-seven-year old lawman with a whip! But before you get to see this, however, you have to struggle through more than 40 minutes of sheer boredom, infantile pranks and sleazy sequences that don't contain any actual sleaze. In case I haven't made myself entirely clear yet: "The Dark Power" is an indescribably cheesy and inept piece of 80's horror crap that still manages to be amusing because of its sheer and somewhat charming stupidity factor. Writer/director Phil Smoot's intentions were obviously admirable, but he – as well as the rest of the cast & crew – lacked the talent and financial means to deliver something even half-decent. Smoot carefully watched "The Evil Dead" and other similar demonic-themed movies, and somehow must have thought he could pull this off as well. The movie opens with an old Indian guy dying in his isolated countryside house; barely speaking out his last word above a whisper … Toltecs. His grandson promptly rents out house to a bunch of college chicks, including a typically 80's aerobics babe, a cute black girl and a racist redneck gal. Soon they will discover why exactly the old Indian lived like a hermit, as he was actually the guardian of an ancient Toltec burial ground. Toltec sorcerers buried themselves alive, only to emerge again thousands of years later and feed on the flesh of the living. And, honestly, is there any better tasting flesh than that of bimbos? As hinted at before already, the first half of "The Dark Power" is terribly lame and sleep-inducing. The clichéd pranks, the retarded dialogs and the ridiculously overlong footage of Lash LaRue swinging around his whip seem to go on forever. Then, the movie loses its last smidgen of credibility when the Toltec sorcerers emerge from the ground. Instead of menacing, they look like drugged out hard rock stars with imbecile masks and drunken gestures. Exactly ONE gory moment is worth mentioning, when a guy's lips are stretched out over his entire skull, but overall even the carnage aspect of this movie is disappointing. The only remotely worthwhile moments are utterly senseless, like when a 9-year-old kid (named Cletus!) goes joyriding with his uncle's truck or when the vulgar naked chick sips beer in the bathtub after working out. Seriously, unless you get turned on by the sight of a 1940's western veteran swinging around his whip at nothing, I'd advise to skip this film.

Wow... I suspected this one to be bad... But now I find myself just at a loss for words... Honestly, no words of mine can do this movie any justice...I'll try to say something anyway...This truly is one unique gem. One of the worst kind.Lash La Rue - given his background as an actor - doing a whip-fight with a Toltec sorcerer-zombie during the movie's climax...??? A true stroke of genius, without a doubt.It rarely happens that I laugh out loud when watching a movie alone. It happened numerous times with this one.The accents of the actors, man, the accents... And the dialogues I heard them speak... And the acting itself... I just couldn't believe what I was hearing.That fat uncle farting so loudly (when walking up to the house together with his little nephew) for no apparent reason whatsoever...Tits! Yes, there's titties! And female ass! There's even a naked chick in a bathtub sipping a beer...That one "stretch his mouth over his face"-kill was the bomb! A true highlight.The comedy-aspects were just totally bonkers. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing and hearing. For a while I even thought that they were unintentional, shaking my head in disbelief. But about halfway in the movie, I started to get the bigger picture. Guess it took me half a movie to dumb-down half of my brain, to finally get it.I had a really hard time believing this movie... But it's good, really, I think. It had one black chick walking up to a very tiny cupboard, opening it and then saying "Wooow, look at all the storage space!". And she said it like she meant it. I mean, that's good dialogue and good acting, right?Oh, and perhaps needless to say: Lash La Rue's whip-skills suck major ass in THE DARK POWER. It's really sad and pathetic to behold. That's all part of the comedy, of course. Or wait, I might be wrong. No, yes, I'm wrong. Lash La Rue was amazing with the whip! It was the editor's fault. He messed it up, cutting his lashes together and all. Or wait, it might have been the camera operator. He filmed from the wrong angles... Then why didn't Phil Smoot say anything? That's it, it's the director's fault.But it's a good movie.I'm just gonna quit talking about it. I have nothing meaningful to say anyway, except for the fact that I hope my brain will recover from this experience... some time soon.