DARK HEARTS: THE SECRET OF HAUNTING MELISSA (2014)

Studio:       Hooked Digital Media
Director:    Neal Edelstein
Writer:       Andrew Klavan
Producer:  Kevin Washington, Neal Edelstein
Stars:     Kassia Warshawski, Jenna Berman, Travis Nelson, Tom Carey, Greg Lawson, Rohan Campbell, Lorette Clow, Barb Mitchell, Megan Tracz, Larry Reese, Lisa Moreau, Joe Norman Shaw, Stefanie Bartlett

Review Score:

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Summary:

Melissa Strogue’s unexpected return after a one-month disappearance begins unraveling an otherworldly conspiracy.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Chapter 1 – Whispers – 02:20/04:15 – Jack Strogue comes home to an empty house, where an unseen presence seems to linger.

Chapter 2 – Haunted Past – 01:20 – At the Turner Halfway House, Amanda Maynard is haunted by the specter of the pale goth girl.*

*2nd viewing – The specter does not appear in the doorway before it reappears behind Amanda Maynard.

Chapter 3 – The Grave – 00:45 – After a coffin is lowered into the ground, a priest smiles and a pregnant Holly Whelkin looks on in horror as the coffin lid begins shaking.

Chapter 4 – Demonic – 02:00 – Ghostly noises are heard in the dilapidated ruins of the Maynard House.

Chapter 5 – Adam’s Room – 00:50 – Something unseen lurks in the shadow behind Adam Lancaster’s bedroom door.*

*2nd viewing – There is no shadow behind Adam’s bedroom door.

Chapter 6 – Silence on the Line – 01:05 – A ghostly voice leaves a message of static on therapist Ann Carroway’s voicemail.

Chapter 7 – Hearing Voices – 02:35 – In the middle of the night, Jack Strogue is drawn to Melissa’s bedroom, where the light is mysteriously on and the door opens by itself.

Chapter 8 – Little Girl Lost – 04:10 – Rachel Zeiden hides her young daughter Emma in a wicker chest and leaves their trailer. Emma waits a few moments before following her mother outside and watches as Rachel vanishes into thin air. An old man in a fedora walking with a limp, referred to as The Visitor, emerges from the tear in space where Emma’s mother vanished. Emma hides and watches as The Visitor shambles by.

Chapter 9 – Something Is Coming to Get Me – 17:30 – Melissa Strogue dreams of a house with the pale goth girl peering out a window. Melissa enters and finds her mother inside, but Katherine morphs into an old hag and says, “we have to feed the beast.” Melissa wakes in a daze and stumbles out of an abandoned industrial building.* Jack Strogue continues to be haunted by an unseen presence while reviewing his wife’s confession video. Melissa’s ex-boyfriend Brandon Hessner visits to tell Jack that he is returning to school, frustrated by the town’s willful lack of concern regarding Melissa’s one-month disappearance. Jack visits Katherine’s grave. Back at the house, Jack follows strange noises to Katherine’s bedroom where ghostly hands creep onto his shoulders briefly. Melissa unexpectedly returns home, unable to remember anything that happened to her since exploring the root cellar. However, she tells her father that she feels someone or something is coming to get her really soon.

*2nd viewing – Melissa unknowingly walks past her doppelganger on her way out of the building.

Chapter 10 – The Visitor – 13:20 – While working as an audio engineer for Willis Pipes’ “All Night Long” radio show on WYOJ-102, a now adult Emma Zeiden conducts an investigation into the anonymous broadcaster’s footage regarding Melissa Strogue’s disappearance. Emma enhances the image of an invoice on the wall behind the broadcaster in one of his videos and traces the address to Parallel Shipping in Ambury. Emma drives to Ambury and searches the empty shipping facility, taking pictures of occult symbology and clues related to Melissa’s disappearance and the anonymous broadcaster. Among the clues left behind by the broadcaster are scrawled GPS coordinates. Emma hides when The Visitor shambles by. The Visitor retrieves an object, later revealed to be a USB flash drive, and exits. When Emma at last emerges from her hiding spot, she hears The Visitor say, “don’t make me come for you, Emma.”

Chapter 11 – The House Across the Street – 11:20 – Farley Mason records a video diary narrating footage he shot of the Lancaster Family who lived across the street in Ambury. When alcoholic Mr. Lancaster became unemployed, his wife, daughter Jane, and son Todd suffered while the family spiraled into despair. One night, The Visitor brought a young boy named Adam to live with the Lancasters and immediately afterwards, the family’s fortunes mysteriously began changing for the better.

Chapter 12 – The Girl in the Coffin – 15:30 – Melissa tries to sleep in her bedroom, but is haunted by visions of the pale goth girl’s dark specter. Melissa locks herself in her mother’s former bedroom, worrying Jack when she refuses to leave for three days.* Mrs. Carroway visits the Strogue house and tries counseling Melissa to remember what happened during her disappearance. Melissa has repeated visions of a girl she does not recognize, later revealed to be Jane Lancaster, telling Melissa to meet her at the church. Melissa walks to the church at St. Andrew’s Cemetery and sees the priest and The Visitor among the congregants assembled for Jane’s funeral. Melissa approaches the coffin, but discovers it empty after opening the lid. Jane then appears holding Melissa’s hand. Wounds are visible on Jane’s neck from her suicide by hanging. Melissa wakes suddenly, realizing it was a dream, but finds a key inside the hand held by Jane.

*2nd viewing – The pale goth girl appears sitting on the bed behind Melissa when she locks herself in Katherine’s bedroom.

Chapter 13 – Someone Is Calling – 00:45 – Mrs. Carroway receives a startling phone call from a ghostly voice that says, “there are promises between us.” Mrs. Carroway nervously responds, “for the love of God, I’m doing what I can.”

Chapter 14 – Buried Secrets – 08:50 – Brandon’s guilt regarding Melissa complicates his new relationship with classmate Ali Shea, with whom he had been cheating on Melissa. Based on his role in Melissa’s life as well as footage of his police interview, Emma finds Brandon at his dorm and tells him about her investigation. She shows Brandon the GPS coordinates discovered at Parallel Shipping along with video footage of Jack Strogue burying a box along a deserted country road at that same location. Brandon agrees to help Emma and together they drive to the remote burial site. While Brandon digs, Emma takes photos with her iPad. On the pictures, she can see The Visitor approaching Brandon, although he is not there in reality. Frightened, Emma hurries Brandon back to the car, though he manages to retrieve the box before they speed away from the invisible presence.

Chapter 15 – Who Were You Talking To – 08:40 – Melissa has another nightmare about the strange house with the old woman and the pale goth girl. Melissa wakes to a brief vision of Jane Lancaster, the girl from the coffin. She then follows the sound of children’s voices downstairs where Melissa secretly spies her father meeting with The Visitor on the porch. Jack reappears inside suddenly, as if in two places at once. Melissa remembers that her mother had a sister. Melissa accuses her father of knowing what really happened to her and of being involved in the pale goth girl’s murder along with Katherine, Amanda Maynard, and Mike Cole. Jack insists that everything Melissa believes is all in her mind. Melissa returns to Katherine’s bedroom and becomes momentarily possessed.

Chapter 16 – These Dead Are Not Dead – 08:40 – In Emma’s hotel room, Brandon puzzles over the symbol carved on the lid of Jack’s buried box. Emma sees that The Visitor no longer appears in the photographs taken at the dig site. Emma theorizes that supernatural doorways are somehow opening and it started with whatever happened at the Maynard House. Emma and Brandon go to the Intensive Care Unit at Cottage Hospital to see Mike Cole, bedridden and wrapped in bloody bandages. Mike speaks cryptically that “the dead are coming to take (him) to Hell,” “we let it out,” and “he uses you and then (the dead) come.” Outside the window, Emma sees The Visitor arriving at the hospital. Mike confesses to killing Katherine’s sister Carys/Karis and refers to a “dark heart, like a door.” He says that he thought they killed “it,” but it came back for Melissa. Emma and Brandon return to Emma’s car. Brandon looks at Emma’s pictures from the dig site and sees The Visitor in one briefly, but the image disappears again before Emma can see. The Visitor then enters Mike’s room and Mike drops dead in fright.*

*2nd viewing – The shot of Mike dying in his hospital bed is now from behind The Visitor.

Chapter 17 – A Very Strange Little Guy – 07:55 – One year after Adam moves in with the Lancaster family across the street, Farley Mason continues secretly recording the odd boy’s strange behavior. Video footage shows a strange light glowing inside the Lancaster house one evening.* Worried about Jane’s safety with the little boy around, Farley explores the shed where Adam spends a great deal of time and finds the apparent carcass of a small creature buried in the dirt and dressed in action figure armor.

*2nd viewing – The video cuts before revealing the light in the Lancaster house.

Chapter 18 – Asking Questions – 08:50 – After pondering over the key in her hand, Melissa returns to her own bedroom where the pale goth girl’s specter can be seen sitting in a chair next to the bed.* Melissa is visibly concerned as her memories begin coming back and she starts praying after looking up something on her computer. Jack speaks on the phone to someone about his daughter’s worrying behavior. Melissa confronts Mrs. Carroway about Jane Lancaster, who committed suicide by hanging seven years earlier. Mrs. Carroway refuses to divulge any information. Melissa returns home to find her father removing the crosses from Katherine’s bedroom.* Jack says, “I’m so sorry.” Melissa returns to her own bedroom where she is assaulted by an unknown man who injects a syringe into her neck. As Melissa begins losing consciousness, she sees The Visitor standing next to the unknown assailant as both men loom over her.*

*2nd viewing – The pale girl is not in the chair next to the bed. The Visitor is seen in Katherine’s room with Jack as Melissa exits. The Visitor does not appear next to the man hovering over Melissa.

Chapter 19 – It’s Bad in Here – 07:25 – When Katherine’s confession begins playing by itself on the television again, Jack implores his dead wife to stop. The image of Katherine turns into Mike Cole, who warns, “it’s bad in here, Jack. You’re not gonna like it.” Jack unplugs the TV, but Katherine’s recording plays again. The police interview Brandon and Emma about their visit to Mike Cole and about their private investigation into Melissa’s disappearance. Brandon learns that Melissa returned home. The surveillance video feed becomes briefly corrupted when the detective interviewing Emma appears on camera.* As Brandon and Emma leave the station, paramedics wheel in Melissa on a gurney at the hospital next door.

*2nd viewing – The interrogation video ends as soon as Emma leaves, before revealing the detective conducting the interview.

Chapter 20 – Jane – 11:30 – Farley Mason narrates more recordings of the Lancaster family’s behavior. Jane Lancaster spies Farley recording her house, and ends up confiding in him regarding her fear of Adam. Jane tells Farley that she has been seeing a female shrink who insists that the strange things she has been witnessing are all in her mind. Jane also reveals that she overheard her parents discussing that children similar to Adam have been placed with other families. The children are known as “dark hearts,” and act as living doorways through which “bad things” can come through like the creature discovered in the shed. Farley and Jane share a romantic moment while Farley comforts her. Jane then returns to her house and commits suicide by hanging. The Visitor appears behind Adam inside Adam’s bedroom.

Chapter 21 – The Key – 07:00 – In a haze while recovering in the hospital, Melissa has a vision of The Visitor and Mrs. Carroway looming over her bed. Melissa wakes in reality and has visions of the pale girl, the old woman, Mike Cole, and Jane Lancaster while Jack and Mrs. Carroway stage a sort of intervention. With Melissa still asking questions about Carys and the root cellar, Jack and Mrs. Carroway agree that Melissa should remain confined on a psychiatric hold for several more days. After being locked in her room by an orderly, Melissa pulls out the key she received from Jane Lancaster’s specter. The key unlocks the window to her hospital room, allowing Melissa to escape outside.

Chapter 22 – Emma’s Secret – 11:50 – Brandon and Emma explore the Strogue farmhouse. Emma finds Katherine’s wooden box in Melissa’s bedroom and takes a picture of the symbol carved on the lid. Brandon finds a notepad with “North 6” scribbled on it, a reference to the psychiatric wing at Cottage Hospital. Emma begins confiding in Brandon about the night her mother disappeared when Jack suddenly returns home. Emma confronts Jack about the “thing (he) brought to life” in the Maynard House. Jack calls Deputy Roy, forcing Emma and Brandon to leave. Emma proposes breaking into the hospital, but Brandon decides he no longer wishes to continue their investigation. Jack enters Katherine’s former bedroom to find his wife inexplicably sitting on the bed. Katherine repeats Mike Cole’s warning, “it’s bad in here, Jack. You’re not gonna like it.” The Visitor then appears in the doorway. The bedroom door closes, locking Jack inside with Katherine and The Visitor. Jack is heard screaming.

Chapter 23 – Feed the Beast – 14:35 – Back in his dorm room, Brandon sees a picture of he and Melissa on his iPad depicting Melissa with a corrupted face. Elsewhere, Emma examines the photos on her own iPad and watches as the picture taken of the symbol on Jack’s box mysteriously animates into an image resembling a star chart. Melissa continues fleeing on foot from the hospital until she ends up at the plantation home from her dreams. Inside, the old woman welcomes Melissa’s return. Melissa goes upstairs to a room where the old woman, the pale goth girl, Mrs. Carroway, and others hidden in shadows watch as The Visitor presides over a captive Farley Mason. Meanwhile, Emma arrives at the same house, but a dilapidated version in a different timeline/reality. Emma watches a video on her iPad of The Visitor challenging Melissa to accept her destiny as a dark heart instead of attempting to hide like her mother did. Emma drops her iPad when Melissa begins transforming at The Visitor’s command to open the doorway and “feed the beast.” When Emma moves to pick up the tablet, The Visitor appears on it with a warning that her pursuit of the truth will drive Emma to the same fate as Farley. Emma flees the house in fear while Melissa sits quietly upstairs.

Chapter 24 – Into the Fire – 03:40 – Farley Mason is revealed to have been the anonymous broadcaster, attempting to put the word out about Melissa and the dark hearts from his father’s old warehouse at Parallel Shipping. Elsewhere, The Visitor takes the flash drive he retrieved from the warehouse and throws it into a fireplace.

Chapter 25 – Shadows in the Dark – 01:40/05:05 – Emma asks Willis what he thinks about the star chart-like symbol on her iPad. Emma looks across the street and sees Melissa and The Visitor leaving Snodgrass Funeral Home together.

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Review:

Do you like dangling plot threads?  Unresolved outcomes?  Characters introduced without context?  How about watching a three-hour movie in ten-minute drips spread over a two and a half week period?  Then “Dark Hearts: The Secret of Haunting Melissa” is just what the doctor ordered to make you run a fingernail over the part in your hair while wondering what the ultimate purpose of the project really is.

Like its predecessor “Haunting Melissa” (review here), the sequel “Dark Hearts” is a feature-length (and then some) horror movie presented in serialized segments as an app for iOS devices.  If you’re familiar with “Haunting Melissa,” then you already know the drill.

Part of the presentation for “Dark Hearts” is that its 177-minute runtime is divvied up as 25 separate chapters, with each streaming installment accessible at a random time, usually about a day after the previous chapter is viewed.  Viewers receive a push notification on an iPad/iPhone in the form of a chilling voice with something creepy to say each time a new chapter is available.  This is one element of the entire package that gets the job done.  I confess that my heartbeat skipped a step as I reclined on my couch in the dark, drifting away slowly for a catnap.  Unexpectedly, a throaty old woman echoed from the corner where my device was charging, “they’re all hiding a secret!”  Okay.  That was undeniably freaky.  The effect loses its luster well before the 24th occurrence, once the process becomes familiar.  But if the app happens to catch you unaware, it will creep you out that first time.  I wish I could say the same about the content of the film itself.

It wasn’t until Chapter Four that I started logging when I received messages announcing a new chapter unlock, along with the time period during which I watched the segment.  Below is the schedule I ended up with, which is supposedly randomized for every viewer.  I believe I began with Chapter One on December 23rd, meaning it took 19 days to make it through the entire film.

Chapter 04 – 12/24 – 06:48pm – 06:48pm-06:50pm
Chapter 05 – 12/25 – 02:58am – 11:30am-11:31am
Chapter 06 – 12/25 – 02:28pm – 02:44pm-02:45pm
Chapter 07 – 12/25 – 03:08pm – 03:08pm-03:11pm
Chapter 08 – 12/26 – 12:13am – 12:20am-12:24am
Chapter 09 – 12/26 – 12:33am – 01:26am-01:44am
Chapter 10 – 12/26 – 07:48pm – 08:46pm-09:00pm
Chapter 11 – 12/27 – 11:18pm – 11:18pm-11:30pm
Chapter 12 – 12/28 – 11:50pm – 12:47am-01:03am
Chapter 13 – 12/29 – 07:19pm – 07:45pm-07:46pm
Chapter 14 – 12/29 – 07:59pm – 08:03pm-08:12pm
Chapter 15 – 12/30 – 01:18pm – 01:19pm-01:28pm
Chapter 16 – 12/31 – 11:48am – 11:51am-12:00pm
Chapter 17 – 01/01 – 11:29am – 12:15pm-12:23pm
Chapter 18 – 01/03 – 03:29am – 10:02am-10:11am
Chapter 19 – 01/04 – 07:18am – 11:53am-12:01pm
Chapter 20 – 01/05 – 07:25am – 04:33pm-04:44pm
Chapter 21 – 01/06 – 04:14pm – 04:17pm-04:24pm
Chapter 22 – 01/07 – 04:29pm – 06:37pm-06:49pm
Chapter 23 – 01/08 – 10:57pm – 10:59pm-11:13pm
Chapter 24 – 01/09 – 06:18pm – 12:36pm-12:40pm on 01/10
Chapter 25 – 01/10 – 02:13pm – 02:38pm-02:43pm

I’m still supremely fuzzy on what it is that Hooked Digital Media means to accomplish with this piecemeal format.  As noted in my review of “Haunting Melissa,” the production team’s apparent motivation is to foster anticipation in the viewer and to integrate the experience as part of his/her communication technology usage habits.  Except this isn’t what happens.

I want to appreciate that director Neal Edelstein and his cast/crew are trying a creatively different approach, I truly do, though I’m not even sure why.  Presenting a horror film through a unique format like a tablet app with push notifications comes with an idea of, “hey that sounds cool.”  Yet seeing it in practice brings the realization that it is simply an ineffective and confused storytelling method.  It just doesn’t work.  Or rather, it doesn’t work for “Dark Hearts” any better than it did for “Haunting Melissa.”

For starters, at least in the schedule I was given, the six segments between chapters five and ten arrived relatively fast and furious with three entries each on two consecutive days.  Then 26 hours passed without receiving anything.  Chapters eventually settled into a semi-reliable arrival pattern of once per day with the mysterious exception of Chapter Eighteen, which for whatever reason waited an additional day before unlocking.  What does sporadic delivery generate for a viewer other than a risk of forgetting about the film entirely during long stretches of nothing?  This is a momentum killer, not a momentum builder.

The first eight chapters are free.  Although that is almost one-third of the 25 chapters, it is only 1/12th of the content.  Just one of those chapters is longer than two and a half minutes and the total of all eight combined equals only 15 minutes of the three-hour runtime.  Starting with Chapter Nine, the first chapter requiring payment, installments increase to meatier lengths generally falling between eight and 15 minutes.

Not only are these initial installments frustratingly brief, they serve as little more than random character introductions that in no way entice a newcomer, or even a returning “Haunting Melissa” veteran, to impulse buy a season pass.  Chapter One is a two-minute trailer followed by two minutes of Melissa’s father coming home to an empty house.  At least three of the characters featured in these segments never show up again until their names appear in the end credits two and a half hours later.  “Dark Hearts” follows in the footsteps of “Haunting Melissa” in myriad ways.  Too bad one of those ways involves a proclivity for pointless padding.

If “Dark Hearts” started with Chapter Eight, no one would notice anything was missing.  However, someone would still notice how needlessly complicated the delivery format is for a story involving multiple characters, timelines, and parallel realities (more on that in a moment).  Chapters eight and ten, for example, feature the same character at different points in her life, but the viewer is unlikely to put together that Chapter Eight is a flashback until much later in the film.  That probably would not happen if one were watching sequentially in one sitting.  Yet when three days separates the mind’s ability to juxtapose those pieces together, memory fades and things like timeline jumps are far less obvious.  This has to be the worst possible way to clearly convey a story requiring bounces between multiple threads stretching nonlinearly in various directions.

“Dark Hearts” picks up where “Haunting Melissa” left off with Melissa Strogue’s vanishing.  One month has passed since Melissa mysteriously disappeared when she unexpectedly returns home to her father’s farmhouse with barely a hazy recollection of what happened to her in the preceding 30 days.  Hardly anything happened to Melissa during the 180 minutes of her first film, so it is unsurprising that no one knows if anything happened to her offscreen afterwards either.

Where “Haunting Melissa” was a mostly grounded haunted house ghost story with a satanic cult twist, “Dark Hearts” takes the fiction into weird world territory involving portal-hopping interspatial travel, pint-sized creatures from another dimension, parallel realities, and a host of other hullaballoo that the screenplay never bothers to tie a ribbon around and explain.  It’s like “Dark Hearts” transports Melissa Strogue’s universe to the island from “Lost” circa season three, when the writers began introducing ideas faster than they could come up with reasons for doing so.

Those familiar with “Haunting Melissa” were forced to grow accustomed to an endless carousel spin of unanswered questions fostering mystery without real intrigue behind it.  Sad to say, “Dark Hearts” takes that style of narrative heel dragging to new lows with some of the most bizarre character behavior meant to draw out a runtime ever recorded on camera.

Remember that mini-chapter in “Haunting Melissa” where Jack Strogue buried an odd wooden box by the side of the road?  Well, Chapter 14 of “Dark Hearts” is all about Melissa’s ex-boyfriend Brandon and his Nancy Drew-esque companion Emma journeying to dig it up.  Except once they do, they don’t actually open the box.  Chapter 16 begins with Brandon and Emma puzzling over the meaning of the symbol etched into the box’s lid.  One of them asks what the other thinks it means.  I don’t know.  Maybe you could… open the box and find out something?

Despite its prominent appearance in both films, the box is never opened.  Neither is the companion box Emma finds in the Strogue farmhouse, which was recovered from Katherine’s bedroom in the first film.  Instead, Emma takes a picture of that lid and leaves the box closed, even though returning viewers already know its contents.  For an armchair sleuth looking to solve a conspiratorial mystery, Emma sucks something fierce at processing evidence held directly in her hands.

“Dark Hearts” also resumes the tired trick of excessively cryptic dialogue.  A dying man in his hospital bed repeatedly warns, “they’re coming!” without ever bothering to specify who “they” are, for instance.  Other chapters drag on with meaningless moments like watching a man’s car being repossessed or seeing Melissa’s man make out with yet another character who disappears promptly only to never be seen again.

“Dark Hearts” is drearily dull and lamentably not frightening.  The film’s big baddie is a limping old man in a fedora, which is evidently presumed to be scary simply because he is showcased in silhouette with ominous music accompanying his presence.  He is gaunt and partially crippled.  His visage isn’t imposing the way say Darth Vader, Leatherface, or Pinhead is by appearance alone.  For most of the movie, the old man merely skulks in shadows occasionally whispering words.  There’s no context given as to whether he is good or bad, a portent of evil, or what is supposed to be so sinister about him.  Each time he shambled onscreen I could only wonder, what is it I should fear about this figure?  How can I have an emotional response when there is no understanding of how he, or anything else for that matter, relates to whatever may be happening in the movie?

“Dark Hearts” earns a slightly higher score than “Haunting Melissa” because its visual look is more polished with a bigger bump in production value.  There are a few first-person segments, but “Dark Hearts” is otherwise not presented as “found footage” this time around.  That gives the film freedom to swim in steadicam setups, crane shots, and at least one helicopter ride for the camera crew (or a drone) to open up the production with more locations than just an empty field and a farmhouse.  Unfortunately, the film remains ball-and-chained to a delivery format that hamstrings the rhythm and to fiction impenetrable for anyone who hasn’t already invested three hours into “Haunting Melissa” (and barely penetrable for those who have).

If you’re looking to jump on the “Haunting Melissa” train mid-journey, this is not the place to board.  And if the first app/movie left you underwhelmed and/or unimpressed, “Dark Hearts” won’t win back your interest.  However, if you enjoyed the breadcrumb trail to nowhere that “Haunting Melissa” casually laid down with a yawn, then “Dark Hearts” additionally offers a welcoming haven of message boards dedicated to each chapter where like-minded conspiracy theorists are invited to mistake continuity errors for hidden clues hinting at the movie’s directionless mystery.  Before getting too wound up in misperceived nuance, just remember that this is the same project that didn’t spell its title character’s last name consistently the first time around.  If you think the creators have savvy for subtlety when it comes to small details, you might be fabricating more meaning into the story than the screenplay actually does.

Review Score:  50

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