A group of friends gather and spend a night hanging out.  Old resentments simmer to the surface.  A murder is committed.  A killer with a bag over his head emerges from the night.  The friends try to figure out who amongst them could be a killer or if there’s something else going on.  I know some people will automatically suspect the guy wearing the Slipknot t-shirt because the members of the band all wear masks and the killer wears a mask but that’s the same logic that led to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.  If he was wearing a Nickelback t-shirt, I would be with you.

This is a short horror film that feels like a bunch of real-life friends got together to play the fictional friends.  The opening half is too talky and slow but the second half picks up and features a few clever touches.  There aren’t many kills and they’re largely bloodless but I think director Jacob Osborn was going for something more than just another slasher.  The movie is more about how the friends relate to each other than anything else.  This is a low-budget, regional film that starts out way too slowly but I’m going to cut it some slack because the second half of the movie makes up for the weak first half.  At a time when the term indie film gets applied to even big-budget productions with major stars, Murder In The Dark is a true independent film.