fouregycats Psychiatrist with a brain tumor spends a weekend with her husband and sister at their cabin. A knock on the door brings a young man who turns out to have a gun. Shortly thereafter, another man arrives, and he turns out to be a former patient of the doctor's, and he wants revenge. While he was in her care, he was given injections of an experimental drug that the doctor was trying on him as a guinea pig because they both have the same type of brain tumor. As the victims are held hostage, psychological games are played; I don't understand why except there has to be a reason to make this movie. Secrets are revealed, of course. I got confused at the end. I must have missed something because it didn't make any sense to me at all. But I give this film 5 stars for the good acting and the dialogue.

sol1218 ***SPOILER ALERT*** Excellent psychological thriller involving psychiatrist and doctor Samantha-or just plain Sam- Goodman, Kate Greenhouse, who gets involved with one of her former patients gay serial murder Harlan Pyne, Aidan Devine, and his accomplice the creepy and rodent-looking Adrian, Dov Tiefenbach.The two break into Sam and her husbands writer David's, Gordon Currie, cottage where their spending the weekend together with Sam's kid sister Melody, Iris Graham, talking over old times. It turns out that Harlan has been very upset with Sam in her series of mind games that she played with him back in the mental institution. Now with him having her, together with David & Melody, where he wants them Harlan decides to give Sam a taste of her own medicine.We learned earlier in the film that Sam is suffering from a malignant cancerous Ruckman brain tumor that's expected to take her life within a year. Taking large doses of Demenopril, the only medication that can possibly shrink the tumor, has Sam's mind play tricks on Sam that plays right into the sick and murderous games that Harlan has in store for her!***SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON***These mind games that Harlan plays with Sam as well as David and Melody together with the drug Demenpril distorts Sam's sense of reality to the point where she envisions that David and Melody are having a affair behind her back. The second half of the movie has Sam completely lose it in that her sense of guilt, in her feeling that she miss-evaluated Harlan back in the mental institution, and her suspicions of her husbands and sisters infidelity leads her to do unspeakable things to herself. When it's-the nightmare- finally over Sam realizes that her mind,effected by her brain tumor, had more to do with her uncontrollable paranoia then even Harlan did! And it was that paranoia that not only caused Sam to lose her mind but her life as well!P.S Despite being one of the better psychological horror dramas released back in 2005 ""The Dark Hours" only generated a meager $423.00 at the box office during it's entire release. Released in just one theater, The Two Boots Pioneer Theater on East 3rd Street, in Manhattan's East Village on October 13, 2005 the movie barley lasted a week! Even though it received favorable reviews from prestigious newspapers like the NY Times as well as other media outlets. It's surprising that the film wasn't released straight to video-or DVD-where it would have made a much better, together with word of mouth, showing.

EVOL666 The first thing that I noticed while watching THE DARK HOURS, is that it felt like an amalgamation of several films that I've already seen. Most similar to Michael Haneke's FUNNY GAMES, there are also some elements that reminded me of the Australian film, THE UGLY, and a dash of FIGHT CLUB to round it out. Luckily, THE DARK HOURS never really came off like a direct rip of any of these films, but I can't say that I found the plot extremely original either. The second thing I noticed, was that even for someone like me who usually can't guess the outcome of films prior to their ending - this one was TOTALLY predictable.A female psychologist with a serious brain-tumor heads up to a cabin where her husband and sister are staying. The trio is greeted by a psychotic young man, and later by the psychiatrist's number-one patient - a psychopath who has the same brain-ailment. Things get tense for the group when the patient decides to play doctor and forces the family into participating in a few of his sadistic but revealing games...THE DARK HOURS is a decent way to blow an hour and a half, but I also wouldn't suggest expecting too much out of it. The acting and direction of this film is what saves it, as the performances add a lot of tension to what would otherwise be a derivative and extremely predictable film. A relatively solid film that would have been far better had it not played it's cards so early...7/10

CineCritic2517 I just stopped my VCR. I'm now about a half hour into the movie and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to see any more if this crap. They already had like a zillion opportunities to grab the gun and be on with their merry little lives but now the gun is practically handed to them. What do they do, they ask the gunman if he's been abused as a kid or something I don't know exactly, I stopped the VCR in the middle of the question.That's not a minor defect in the story, it is what is completely ruining it. It's for everyone to see and yet this flick gets a 6.4 and the first comment about this movie states "excellent".I'm moving to another planet. cheers!