Customer Reviews

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace - Original British Version [NON-U.S.A. FORMAT - PAL Region 2 Import] (aka Dark Place)

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Why isn't this wonderland of horror parody genius available in America yet? "Garth Merenghi's Darkplace" is the perfect horror satire. It was created by British comedians Matthew Holness (who plays the title author/actor/visionary/etc.), and Richard Ayoade, who plays his publisher/producer Dean Lerner. The premise is an insanely low-budget 80's style supernatural menace-of-the-week series with all of the awfulness and cliches that one would expect had Ed Wood done such a thing. It's presented as a "lost classic" that has been restored and enhanced with commentary from Marenghi and Learner. Turns out the only way to top watching inept television for laughs is intersperse short bits where the creators try to explain the ineptness as something deep and cerebral. Sadly, the show only had six episodes produced and while the premise might have worn thin with time, it was nowhere near that point when it got the axe. I suppose it's good to know that it's not only American networks that are run by morons.

Okay, so how to describe the funny? This is hard to do. How about rampant sexism, a murderous stapler, blatantly moronic self-written heroes incompetently portrayed as manly geniuses (or was that just Good Will Hunting?), intentionally stiff and redundant dialogue with bad dubbing that is prone to going off on pointless time-killing tangents, laugh out loud bad cuts, and racism that tries to come off as noble? No dice, huh? It's nigh impossible to describe just what makes this show such a riot. Picture the worst movie that you love to watch for unintentional laughs if nothing else. I'm talking Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, Night of the Lepus, and Plan 9 from Outer Space meets the 80's here. Now picture a British parody of this phenomenon played 100% straight. That's the premise of "Darkplace".

Episode One: "Once Upon a Beginning" introduces us to the hospital workers/genre archetypes that populate Darkplace Hospital, burdened with a hellmouth beneath it. You've got Liz, the new woman doctor who is prone to bursting into tears (complete with instantly-running mascara which often disappears and reappears in consecutive shots) and general helplessness. Doctor Rick Dagless MD, Marenghi's moronic self-written hero who is constantly fawned upon by every other character. The administrator (read: disapproving, by-the-book authority figure) played by Learner who obviously has never acted a day in his life. Doctor Lucien Sanchez rounds out the main character list as the womanizer with an odd Patrick Stuart-esque quality to his voice. The episode features a man exploding which is shown from about 5 angles and each time it is more obviously a dummy. The scene that follows has Dagless talking to the patient's disembodied head on the floor and then putting him out of his misery by smacking him like a hockey puck (in slow motion, of course) with a shovel that just so happens to be handy in the doctor's office while sad piano music plays. The fact that the very rubber head bounces off the wall and lands back at his feet (still slow motion, still sad piano music) makes it even funnier.

"Hell Hath Fury" begins with the rest of the cast mistreating Liz at every step until her hair stands on end and she just stands there in plain view like Carrie at the prom while inanimate objects begin flying about the hospital and attacking the staff. It takes them nearly the entire show to figure out that she is the cause in spite of the fact that she is in nearly every shot with them; even after someone randomly remarks that telekinetic powers are known to manifest themselves when somebody is feeling unappreciated. Chalk this up as the ultimate Stephen King parody/homage.

"Skipper the Eyechild" is about an eyechild named Skipper. Yup. Learner's commentary yields a remark about how disgusting it is that a giant eyeball monster's penis can't be shown on network television. Classic. Flashbacks to Dagless's tragic experience with his own half-grasshopper son are portrayed as heart-rending as he attempts to save the product of giant killer eyeball-monster rape from being put to death. Oh yeah, it's that dumb.

"The Apes of Wrath" is the classic devolution storyline, done Marenghi-style. "If we're all basically homos, shouldn't we get along?", asks Learner's character seriously as Dagless runs down the stages of human evolution. Every character who changes spends quite some time drinking the bright green water from Darkplace's sudden conspicuously green glowing watercooler, but naturally nobody notices until the end.

"Scotch Mist" is probably the funniest episode, as it portrays Scottish people as subhuman savages but tries to play it real respectful-like. The end result is about as comfortable as a Klansman trying to act the progressive liberal around his son's black girlfriend. For example, the Scotsmen's dialogue is subtitled in spite of the fact that their accented English is plainly understandable. "I know 'mon' means 'man' but I don't think 'och' means anything" observes a sagely Sanchez after a cryptic message from a Scottish ghost shows up on the answering machine. Throw in some haunted bagpipes and you've got every Scottish stereotype and then some. Marenghi's excuse? "I was trying to unify Britain", he says angrily in the commentary. Then he insists anybody who sees racism in the story is racist themselves.

Last but far from least came "The Creeping Moss from the Shores of Shuggoth" which turns people into broccoli. Really bad special-effects broccoli. As Sanchez pines for Liz who only has eyes for Dagless we're treated to the most insanely uncalled-for 80's music video sequence ever. This is the single funniest scene in the entire show to me. It's got terrible synth music, a cheesy guitar solo (by Dagless, of course), and lame lyrics about Sanchez's achin' heart; there's even a rap breakdown. Pure freakin' genius are the only words to capture how delightfully awful it is.

So there is is, every episode of the ill-fated "Garth Marenghis Darkplace", filled with every low-budget horror cliche a fan could imagine amplified to ludicrous proportions and delivered without a hint of irony. It's very British and fully expects the viewer to get the joke on their own so if bone-dry humor doesn't float your boat then run far away. Actually, you won't have to run far because you can only get this on region 2 DVD right now. What an abominable crime against the horror-comedy genre that is. This is the only show where I can say the credits alone made me laugh out loud. Seeing Marenghi and Learner splash their names across every credit is a hoot. The music is credited as "based on melodies originally whistled by Garth Marenghi" and the special effects company is listed as "Deanamatronix". There is nothing else like this show and it is very much worth tracking down if you've ever truly enjoyed an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Bad low-budget horror movies/television made even worse is the name of the game here and I doubt we'll ever see the like of it again. Pity.

I came to from a heavy sleep to see an advertisement for this show on Adult Swim and immediately set my Tivo to grab it. Hands down, among the best offerings from the channel. Although, I did find this disc on amazon.co.uk for less than half of the price listed here.

Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is one of the funniest shows Ive seen in a long time. A sort of cross between Dr. Who, General Hospital and Dark Shadows. Im looking forward to it being available on US DVD format.

Great show, which I've seen only due to my pal in Seattle who has a PAL player! C'mon, guys, we're long overdue for a region 1 release...along with the followup Man on Man with Dean Learner I believe it's called...and I've never seen.

The only thing that is difficult about this dvd is that it is a region 2 format and only reads on certain DVD's. Other than that the show is awesome and Adult Swim does not play this show enough for viewers to fully enjoy such an odd show.

I have watched the reruns of this show on both the SyFy Channel and Adult Swim... I wish Adult Swim would package it in DVD format for the U.S., sure I am not the only one who would want to pick this up! If you haven't seen it and you are a fan of offbeat British humor (Mighty Boosh, Look Around You and classics like Monty Python's Flying Circus) then you really need to check this out. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is one of the best "lost" classics of all time in my book.

Garth Marenghi -- think Stephen King or Dean Koontz, but with no discernible talent and an ego that could eat Tokyo.

So as you can guess, "Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" is horrendously wretched -- it collapses under the weight of wooden acting, stupid plots and pompously silly direction. This deliberately terrible metaparody (supposedly a lost horror-drama from the 80s) is brilliantly terrible from start to finish and is crammed with false comedy, contrived tragedy, and wonderfully sick humor.

The plot: a fluff-brained new doctor named Liz Asher (Madeleine Wool, as played by Alice Lowe) arrives at Darkplace and has a psychic vision of something terrible about to happen. The brilliant Dr. Rick Dagless (Marenghi, played by Matthew Holness), who is also an ex-warlock, realizes that something is horribly amiss in Darkplace -- exploding patients, zombies, and a possible portal into hell.

And it's not the last problem that Dag has to deal with, with the assistance of the womanizing Dr. Lucien Sanchez (Todd Rivers, played by Matt Berry) and Thornton Reed (Dean Learner, played by Richard Ayoade). Among their problems -- telekinetic attacks, a mysterious alien cloud that transforms people into broccoli, hospital personnel devolving into ape-men, a giant eyeball-baby that Dag becomes emotionally attached to, and a Scottish mist that has a personal beef with Dag.

The entire idea behind "Darkplace" is that the series was created in the 1980s, but was shelved (according to Garth Marenghi) because it was too cutting-edge for the masses. Every single episode is peppered with interviews with Garth, Dean and Todd ("In Black Fang I asked: What if a rat could drive a bus? And what if it and its rat brethren took over and ate Parliament?").

The actual story itself is a mad hybrid of "X-Files" and "E.R.," and is handled in the most cheesily melodramatic fashion possible -- gloriously sick humor (just see how the baby eyeball plot is concluded), dramatic speeches, terrible jokes ("She's gone bananas!"), and too much slow-motion. Most of the hilarious stuff is from the intentionally ghastly dialogue ("I ran the only way I knew how: by placing one leg in front of the other in quick succession"), and the way the plots are handled in a totally deadpan manner.

Holness is simply awesome, to the point where I actually forgot he was playing one character playing another -- Marenghi is a deliciously deluded hack writer. And Dag is basically his Mary Sue: a gunslinging, oh-so-tragic genius that everyone worships -- even though he's actually incredibly wooden and pompous... not to mention arrogant ("We're doing all we can. but I'm not Jesus Christ. I've come to accept that now").

And the rest of the cast is brilliant at being wooden, weird and producing forced laughter -- Ayoade is especially awesome as the flat-voiced Dean, Lowe is blank-eyed and hilariously fluffy, and Berry is absolutely gutsplitting even in the most absurd situations ("Cordless iron... friggin' smarts").

"Garth Marenghi's Darkplace" is like something written by Stephen King... only really, really bad and stupid, and not even remotely scary. However, it's a truly hysterical metaparody that ends way too fast.

No idea how this show was cancelled; its absolutely hilarious. Had a little trouble playing the dvd on US dvd players, but my computer runs it.

Garth Merenghi's Darkplace is served up to the viewer as a failed 80's series that had a short run in Peru but was rejected by the BBC for a rerun of 'Who's the Boss'. Because of the interesting nature of Darkplace, we're treated not only to a mock-80's series written by a mock-horror writer but also commentary by Todd Rivers (the amazing Matt Berry), as well as from the producer Dean Learner (Richard Ayoade at his creepy best) and Garth himself (Matt Holness putting on a great Stephen King impersonation with extra smarm and self-righteousness). Your humble fabulist treats the viewer to 6 outright hilarious episodes ranging from gateways to hell to people turning into broccoli (which Garth maintains comes from space) -- and everything in between.

It is a sincere shame that this show did not take off in the UK, though as an American I would not expect it to have fared better in the US with the morass of shows like American Idol and Desperate Housewives soaking up viewer braincells. I say it's a shame because, if you sit down and watch this and have even a shred of a funny bone in your body, you WILL laugh. The entire show is a running gag, from the cheap sets to the intentionally horrible acting to the props on strings, and that's what both sets Darkplace apart and elevates it above its peers with a cult following that will hopefully someday get it the respect it deserves -- and perhaps another series!

Note: Purchasing this from the UK branch of amazon will save you as much as $10! I have no idea why they charge so much on amazon.com for it, but there you go.

As Garth would say, 'Sit down, relax, and enjoy. Well I SAY, enjoy.'

I loved every second of this DVD. The series and performances are spot on, along with all the technical precision of re-creating a 1980's era TV series. Kudos to Garth for bringing this show back from the dead.