Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

ActuallyGlimmer The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

kkonrad-29861 I'm Garth Marenghi. Author, dreamweaver, visionary, plus actor. You're about to enter the world of my imagination. You are entering my Darkplace. Garth Marenghi is genius, and as Dean Lerner himself said:"Garth is the most significant artist that I have ever worked with, and I have worked with Lulu and four other people.". And when Dean Learner says that. At the beginning of every episode Garth Marenghi reads excerpt from his novels that only further proves his masterful writing abilities (Mike stared in disbelief as his hands fell of from 'Slasher'.). Music by Stig Baasvik, based on melodies originally whistled by Garth Marenghi.'Garth Marenghi's Darkplace' is fantastic horror and behind the scenes spoof. Probably the best there ever is. It ran only six episodes before the show was cancelled because the low viewer numbers, and it is sad. But on the other hand, the long run would have become repetitive and finally turned stale. Six twenty five minute long episodes is perfect length for such absurdity. The writing is masterfully bad as the acting and directing (all of this is on purpose of course). Constant continuity errors and bad dialogue offers laugh after laugh. But not most of the jokes are on your face, at least half the jokes are very subtle that you notice them on the second (or fourth or even on the sixth) viewing, or when someone points it out for you. TV show inside TV show have never been funnier, and the really funny part about it is that I actually cared about the show and characters Garth Marenghi had created. Gun doting doctors in hospital constantly plagued by supernatural forces can never be any cooler than in Garth Marenghi's imagination.

Charles Herold (cherold) Recently I watched the first episode of a parody series I didn't care for (The Spoils of Babylon) and when I read the user reviews for that series, one reviewer compared it unfavorably with a British series I'd never heard of, Darkplace. So I hunted it down (found it on youtube).I loved it instantly. There's a crazy handshake moment early on that had me laughing riotously. The show perfectly captures bad entertainment in the same way The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra does.The series has a wonderful eye for detail. Badly dubbed dialogue, weird jump cuts, and nice little touches like an antenna on the hospital roof that any decent director would keep out of the shot. Clearly a tremendous amount of thought went into this.While the series is consistently funny throughout its 6 episodes (plus an amusing interview extra created for the DVD), I'm not that sad that it didn't get anymore. This strikes me as something that would be difficult to maintain.Now on to check out the other show recommended by my fellow Spoils-of- Babylon hater, Danger 5.

scarletminded I stumbled upon this show at 3am on Adult Swim, noticing a few of the actors from the IT Crowd in the show. I watched ten minutes of it and I was laughing so hard, I had to record every other episode of Darkplace I could find. It's a parody show, yet with its own twisted humor added. It reminds me a bit of Dark Shadows mixed with Doctor Who. It had a lot of subtle wit, so those who are into that sort of thing will love it. I read that this series doesn't contain jokes...but it does, so I am confused about that statement. It is because the show doesn't have a laugh track to tell you when it is funny? The whole thing is a parody of 70s/80s badly made TV horror filled with jokes. I just wish it was available to us Americans, who would buy the boxed set if it was.

Eumenides_0 What I love about British comedies is that they're always looking for something new. They're never content with repeating the same ideas under the guise of new actors and story lines. Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is one of those crazy new ideas. Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness return to the '80s, look for everything that was bad in that decade's TV shows, for what was in need of a send up, and created this show which spoofs anything from A Team to Night Rider to Miami Vice.Garth Marenghi is a horror writer, a visionary, a dream weaver, or, as he puts it, an imaginer. He's really a mediocre novelist and a worse director and writer. But somehow he manages to get a TV show made with his publisher, Dean Learner, and actors Todd Rivers (the amazing Matt Berry) and Madeleine Wool (Alice Lowe). The show is awful, with corny plots, bad sfx, and a synth-heavy score typical of the time. Garth believes the show was so ahead of its time it could change the world. Unfortunately no channel bought it and Darkplace remained in his basement for nearly twenty years (except for a run in Peru).Decades later a channel decides to air the show. For this Garth adds a few interviews with himself and the crew. Many times they interrupt the action to comment on it. Obviously, these are the finer bits, with the serious way they discuss the show they made, incapable of realizing how poor it is.Alas, they only made six episodes. I can't understand why it didn't gain more popularity. The episodes are short and one will feel hungry for more. For this reason buying the DVD is a good idea. The crew created two extra interviews, each 30 minutes long, which are as amusing as any of the episodes and give a lot of insight into Garth, Dean, Todd and Madeleine's mysterious fate. This is the only DVD I've actually bothered to watch all the extras, they're all amazing and add a lot to the original show.Up there with the modern shows of its kind - The League of Gentlemen and The Mighty Boosh - this mix of humor and horror, of TV and movie spoofs is one of the most original and unforgettable shows made.