It really hurts me to have to bear this particular lump of bad news, folks…especially after two solid years of mostly excellent films making it to the After Dark Horrorfest.

But this time just might be the low water mark, and horror movies will never be the same for it.

A little background…the After Dark Horrorfest got started up back in 2006, with the third to be released in January of this year.  This was about two years after I got started in horror review, and was receiving movies on a nice and regular basis from the good folks at Lions Gate.  So I got both box sets on video, a relief for me because these films never came out within a hundred miles of my house.

And they were almost always great films.

I say almost always because an odd trend developed in my coverage of these films–there was one film that was of lower quality than the others.  I called it the “dog”.  The whipping boy, if you will–that one film that proved the rest were great by being at best mediocre, and at worst, a complete and utter LOAD.

The 2006 version was called The Hamiltons, and it was a dull little film about what seemed to be a family of vampires.  Longtime readers will roll their eyes as I repeat myself and say vampire movies bore me to tears under most circumstances.  The 2007 version was called Lake Dead, and it was mostly an unpleasant Texas Chainsaw Knockoff that made me question how it even got into what was supposed to be an august lineup in the first place.

But it’s a little more than that.  The 2007 version of the After Dark Horrorfest not only featured a full-on dog, but also a lower quality of films overall.  If the trend continues into this year, overall quality will suffer even further, and the dog will manage to be worse still.

I have one bit of evidence to support this conclusion–a bit weak, I know, but such is the case with all supposition.  That bit of evidence, simply enough, is The Butterfly Effect 3.

Yes, it’s true–a third Butterfly Effect, based on the first film involving of all things Ashton Kutcher, will be featured in the After Dark Horrorfest.  Given how…unpleasant…the first one was (I haven’t even been able to force myself to see the second), the third one cannot be much better.  Already we have a likely candidate for a dog and the thing hasn’t hit screens yet.

And if that’s where low-water mark is…I can’t even begin to imagine the rest.

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