'Darkroom' (1989) – Terrence O'Hara.

I thought it might be time to throw some much-needed light on the sinisterly sleazy Nico Mastorakis-produced, bugged-out shutter-bug slasher 'Darkroom'. This frequently grisly, modestly menacing, late 80s blood-spiller about an especially vile, voyeuristic villain who not only gruesomely slices and dices his unsuspecting female victims, this exceptionally sordid, smut-swaddled skeezer also collects lurid photographic mementos of these gruesome murders to perversely prolong his sadistic pleasures! Having a serviceable plot, some delightfully grisly kills, and pleasingly photogenic scream queens, director Terrence O'Hara's unfairly neglected, body bag stuffing, blood-spattered B-slasher is wholly undeserving of its current anonymity, while the performances are rarely better than average, the earnest young cast gives it their best shot, and their collective twitchy energy adds much additional colour to Darkroom's downbeat, dramatically underdeveloped, made-for-TV-Giallo charm! All that being said, this remains a bit of an odd duck, not quite a generic 80s teen-screamer, with no Argento amateur sleuthing, no limber camera acrobatics, and nary a black glove in sight, 'Darkroom' nonetheless develops its very own singular sinister shade of idiosyncratic doom! The more stab-happy slasher fans should F-stop at nothing to focus their morbid attentions on this terrifically tense, and most Axe-cellently creepy 'Darkroom'. Fans of John Carpenter's cult classic 'Someone's Watching Me!', and Lamont Johnson's sleaze-smeared 'Lipstick' might get an additional B-Movie buzz from this far from overexposed 80s shocker.