People think of big cities as being dangerous places, and these beliefs are usually rooted in some sort of facts. However, it's small towns which hide deep, dark, dangerous secrets. In these places, things can be quaint and peaceful on the outside, and turbulent and violent within. At least in the big city the dangers speak for themselves. The idea of a small town where a tranquil visage cloaks a lethal persona is the idea behind Beneath the Darkness, a thriller which attempts to hit the fears which we all share.

Dennis Quaid stars in Beneath the Darkness as Ely Vaughn, a small-town mortician. At the local high school, there is a rumor/urban legend that someone once spotted a ghost in the window of Vaughn's house. Local teens Travis (Tony Oller), Abby (Aimee Teegarden), Brian (Stephen Lunsford), and Danny (Devon Werkheiser) decide that they want to check this out, so they sneak into Vaughn's house, thinking that he's not home. As it turns out, he is home and the kids not only see something very creepy, but they witness Vaughn committing a crime. However, when the police arrive, Vaughn has cleaned everything up, and it's the kids who get into trouble. Travis and Abby decide that they must expose Vaughn in order to clear their names.

On the surface, Beneath the Darkness appears to be an interesting movie. It's a low-budget movie which was shot in Texas that was able to attract familiar faces like Dennis Quaid, Brett Cullen (who will be instantly recognizable to fans of Lost), and up-and-coming actress Aimee Teegarden. The movie was written by a "Texas gentleman" (as he's labeled in the credits) and directed by an Argentinean. The film features an old dark house which belong to a mortician, a cemetery, and dead bodies -- all things which should be ingredients for a creepy film. The movie isn’t afraid to let a main character die fairly early in the film, and also have another one get injured. So, there are enough elements to make for a watchable movie -- perhaps even a cult movie.

But, when one digs beneath the surface (beneath the darkness?), they’ll find an incredibly shallow movie. (So I guess that wouldn’t require much digging, would it?) The above synopsis pretty much describes the entire film. Beneath the Darkness isn’t really interested in twists and turns. The story is fairly straight-forward, and the only real shock was actually ruined for me by the trailer. The kids go to Vaughn’s house, something bad happens, and they try to prove that Vaughn is guilty. That’s about it. The whole thing feels like the rough-draft of a movie. We get the surface story, but there’s nothing underneath. All of the characters are very one-dimensional and no one goes beyond being a stereotype (the jock, the smart guy who’s bored in school, the nice guy, etc.). In fact, it’s not clear for a long time if Abby is dating Brian or not. But, this is the least of the movie’s problems. The finale gets pretty dumb and the adult’s refusal to listen to the teens borders on redundant.

To be fair, Beneath the Darkness does make an effort at times. The opening sequence is fairly interesting and does a good job of capturing the viewer’s attention. There is one especially good shot of Dennis Quaid emerging from the shadows which is quite effective. But, these moments aside, the movie is decidedly lackluster. The story is dull and the direction is heavy-handed at times (check the Spielberg-like unmotivated zooms in the first high-school scene). In the end, instead of being the horror movie which I’d hoped Beneath the Darkness would be, it plays more like something from the LifeTime Network.

Beneath the Darkness makes breaking and entering look really easy on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Image Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains a 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 20 Mbps. The image is sharp and clear, showing some slight grain and no defects from the source material. The colors look good, but the nighttimes scenes are a tad dark. The image does show a nice amount of detail and the depth is pretty good. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 2.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. The stereo effects are nicely detailed and work well when the kids are in Vaughn’s house. The same goes for the surround sound effects, which alert us to sounds happening around the characters. The subwoofer effects come into play with shock sound effects.

The Beneath the Darkness Blu-ray Disc contains only two extras. "Behind the Scenes" (3 minutes) is simply a short reel of "fly on the wall" on-set footage of various scenes being shot. The only other extra is the TRAILER for the film.