Daveigh Chase

Samantha Darko (Daveigh Chase) is on a cross-country road trip with best friend Corey (Briana Evigan) when she begins to become plagued by bizarre visions not greatly dissimilar to those her brother experienced years before. Their arrival in a particular small town sets everything into motion with regards to the plot, which involves an war vet (James Lafferty) predicting the end of the world, a religious couple designed to look suspicious and spout trailer-quotable lines, Ed Westwick in squinty-eye mode and a string of missing children.

S. Darko is like a hybrid of Donnie Darko and Final Destination 3, an ominous exercise in the seeming inevitability of death in which time travel and ghostly visions briefly (at least physically) featured in the first film are magnified to the point of ridicule as director Fisher repeats himself a few times over, virtually undoing the majority of the good moves he makes. When a central character dies in a car accident the moment comes as an authentic surprise, suggesting that the filmmaking team had greater aspirations than much of the movie suggests. Alas, Fisher rewinds and makes alterations a la Funny Games.

Boosted little by the acting performances — Chase still acts as if she’s in Oliver Beene, Evigan succeeds at looking seductive and little else, Lafferty is too earnest in his maniacal machinations and Westwick is just incredibly awfully, emoting with the conviction of roadkill — handed in by a cast that also includes the underrated (and unfairly maligned) Elizabeth Berkley, S. Darko blandly goes through the motions of your typical teenage supernatural flick, failing at livening up the familiarities in a way that superior films like The Invisible do and instead going the way of faux-profundity in ripping off its own brethren.