The reason I enjoy watching the micro-budget direct to DVD stuff, is that it offers the opportunity to discover something new and different. Granted, you have to sift through a lot of crap before finding something worthwhile, but once you do it's worth the effort, and sometimes even a partial victory is still a victory. Dark Chamber is no masterpiece, but it displays a degree of style and technical proficiency that most of the other films released on the same label -- Shock-O-Rama Cinema -- can only dream about, and I'd like very much to see what this director could do with a bigger budget.

Director Dave Campfield grabbed my attention with a scene early in the film. We see our main character Justin packing, and before he closes his suitcase he tosses in a study guide for the police exam. He looks in on a sleeping figure and the camera shows a night stand littered with prescription pill bottles, and before he leaves Justin tapes an envelope to the bedroom door with "Mom," written on it. Nothing flashy, but in just a few shots Campfield has relayed several points vital to the story without using a single word of dialogue, and shown himself to be well above the curve as far as direct to DVD filmmakers go.
Justin Besler has had enough of his mother's pill popping ways. Disgusted with her dependency on prescription drugs and tired of having to support her, he moves in with his father while he attends college. Justin's Dad, Kurt, is a police detective, and he's converted the family homestead into an apartment house. His tenants are a quirky bunch, including a wannabe screenwriter who sells guns on the side, a terminal cancer patient with a liking for hookers, and a massage therapist and her deranged pyromanical sister. Justin makes the acquaintance of a young woman who soon turns up dead on the property, the apparent victim of a satanic cult called The Black Circle. Justin decides that the killer must be one of his Dad's tenants. Enlisting the aid of two friends, he launches his own investigation, placing hidden cameras in all of the apartments, and the trio learn of all the sordid goings on taking place around them.

Desiree Gould plays Justin's mother and her name figures prominently in the film's promotional materials despite having a fairly small role. The fact that Gould appeared in 1983's Sleepaway Camp is obviously supposed to attract the horror junkies. The rest of the cast is competent, with Eric Conley turning in a particularly strong performance as Justin. The story is loosely based on an actual murder committed by a satanic group, but the connection is so slight it hardly seems worth mentioning. One aspect of the film that keeps it from being a total success are the robed and masked cultists that stretch believability to the breaking point. Things begin to drag halfway through the second act, and the evidence that forms the film's climax is irritatingly convenient. Like I said, not a great film, but it is interesting to see what Campfield and company were able to achieve on less than $25,000.

For those with an interest in the film making process, the extras are actually more entertaining than the feature. The disk sports two commentary tracks, one with Campfield, the other featuring isolated music tracks, selections from cast and crew, and deleted or alternate music tracks. Also featured are a making of featurette, interviews with the cast, a mini documentary about the real satanic murder that inspired the film, a music video and alternate scenes.