Reviewed by
Christopher Armstead
The story is Adam’s first wife Lilith, the one before Eve, was an evil, insubordinate shrew who refused to bow down to Adam, and thus was cast out of Eden by God and cursed to walk the earth in shame for all eternity. Done with Lilith, God pulled out one of Adam’s ribs and made Eve. That worked out soooo much better. It’s a talking snake Eve… don’t listen to it. Regardless, according to this Sci-Fi Channel Original ‘Darklight’, Lilith being all mad and stuff has been causing a ruckus ever since straight slaying humans. But what if… I mean what if… we could rehabilitate this hellish demon and make her a high flying Super Hero! What about that, huh? It could happen.
Dateline Sofia Bulgaria… uh… I mean Seattle Washington. Heartbroken Faith Operative William Shaw (Richard Burgi) has finally cornered the evil Lilith and is ready to rid the Earth of this demon until his boss (Ross Manarchy) reminds him that The Faith are not murderers. Shaw thinks that’s stupid, just like his Faith colleague Director Chapel (John de Lancie) thinks it’s stupid. What are the chances that John de Lancie is going to be the bad guy in this movie? 100%.
Three years later we are in the lab of Anders the Nutty Professor (David Hewitt) who has been experimenting with the Lilith blood strain to create an immortality serum. He injects it himself and it works! Kind of. Unfortunately he looks like a low grade CGI gargoyle, and is being controlled by the evil Director Chapel who wants to destroy the planet for some reason.
Across town we are introduced to the super cute, but super confused young lady Elle (Shiri Appleby) who was found wandering around a local park, completely discombobulated, some three years ago and is desperate to remember who she is. She’s Lilith by the way. But this cute kid is a real good person. I mean she saves kids from danger and she’s caring and considerate and all kinds of stuff. She’s also discovered she can get run down by speeding cars and barely suffer a scratch.
So here’s the deal. The crazy monster we talked about earlier is infecting us all with the Red Death. Lilith is the only person who can stop this crazy monster. Shaw needs to train Lilith so she can regain her super power mojo so she can do what needs to be done. Shaw hates Lilith because she murderized his son a few years ago. Can you feel the conflict? Can you feel it? The problem with Lilith getting her powers back is the likely chance she might return to her murdering ways. Regardless, a battle is looming between the sexy demon Lilith and the horrible gargoyle Anders, all in crappy CGI. We wait with baited breath.
As I continue my journey to watch every Sci-Fi original film ever made, I’ve run into a stumbling block. This stumbling block is that 98.6% of these movies suck and it’s becoming difficult to move forward with the required chutzpah. Bucket List Item #44… use ‘Chutzpah’ in a sentence. Yes, I knew how these movies were before undertaking this journey but actually experiencing this is almost mind numbing. Take ‘Darklight’ for instance. ‘Darklight’ is really no better or no worse than any other Sci-Fi original, just 92 minutes worth of solid blah, like most of the other Sci-Fi originals. This one is kind of unique in the sense that it looks as if it was supposed to be the launching point of a TV series, Lilith the Super Heroine slashing demons while attempting to suppress her evil soul on the road to redemption. And to be honest with you, as a TV series it might not have been all that bad, but as a standalone movie there really wasn’t much to grab ahold of.
The cast of Sci-Fi TV series icons pretty much coasted through this movie, giving us just enough to make us think they cared a little bit, but not too much… though there’s not a lot about the adorable but mousy 5’2", 100 pound Shiri Appleby that screams Badass Demon. The narrative was rote and predictable but not completely awful, the special effects from 2004 were subpar even for eight years ago, but the concept was a decent one. Again, maybe better developed over the course of a TV series.
There are some nuggets of stupidity which do help Un-Blah this movie just a little bit. Say like Q getting gored by the monster through the chest, then injecting himself with the Red Death anecdote which made him just fine. I get that the anecdote works for the infection, but who knew it worked for spinal cord rippage, internal organ destruction and sternum decimation? Who knew? Then there was Lilith’s battle with the other monster, a battle that was going real bad until she found a conveniently placed canister labeled ‘Toxic Adhesive’. Believe me, can’t nothing turn the tide of a demon battle like a vat of conveniently placed Toxic Adhesive.
Anyway, if the entire production of ‘Darklight’ was as stupid as those few scenes, it would’ve been more fun. As it stands what we have is another blah filled, run of the mill, Sci-Fi Original worth watching only if you’re stupid enough to try to be a Sci-Fi Original Completist. But who in their right mind would do that?
