REVIEW: DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS

Veteran indie film producers Gayle Gallagher and Wyatt Weed have crafted a sharp little ghost story/thriller with their latest effort, "Dark at the top of the Stairs", and what's more they did it with essentially a crew comprised of two people.

For an ultra micro-budget feature with only two people behind the camera, and indeed for most of its run time only ONE person in front of the camera, this quiet little film packs a bigger punch than it reasonably should.

The story is fairly simple. A fashion photographer known simply as "The Man" (Wyatt Weed) is diagnosed with a life-altering illness shortly before the death of his twin brother "The Brother" (also Wyatt Weed) which results in "The Man" inheriting their remotely-situated childhood home, which is jam-packed with childhood trauma. The story that follows mostly takes place within and without said home, an appropriately isolated and spooky, yet oddly comfortable-looking locale.

This is essentially a ghost story wrapped around a tale of pondering your own mortality, and as such is not packed full of gore and scares, but filled with a creeping dread and rising tension throughout. Ultimately "The Man" must confront his past as well as "The Father" (again Wyatt Weed) in what proves, to me at least, to be an interesting showdown, the conclusion of which I'll leave for the viewer to watch.

While nowhere near the level of technical wizardry such as seen in SINNERS, the fact that Wyatt Weed plausibly pulls off playing three separate related characters in this film is worth the price of admission alone.

"Dark at the top of the Stairs" is proof-positive that you don't need a massive budget, a giant crew, or tons of resources to make a compelling piece of cinema.