Here in Europe, "Dark Ride" is simply just another low-keyed and cheesy horror movie that anonymously moved to the lowest and most neglected shelves of video stores, but in the States it's apparently a little more popular because it was part of the 'Eight Films To Die For'-cycle that played at the "After Dark" horror festival. I'm not exactly sure on which criteria the titles of this festival were selected, but originality definitely can't be one of them, as "Dark Ride" is hugely derivative of Tobe Hooper's "The Funhouse" as well as a dozen of other mundane 80's slashers. It's an entertaining film that offers quite a lot of gory make-up effects and nasty scenery, but the screenplay is absolute rubbish and doesn't contain anything you haven't seen millions of times before. I have to admit the opening sequence is awesomely atmospheric, creepy and even a slight bit controversial, because two children  twin girls  are slaughtered and barbarically dissected on screen by a mad-raving lunatic who hid himself in a theme park ride. These days it's rather exceptional to see children and/or young teenagers getting killed in horror, so "Dark Ride" started promising to say the least. Unfortunately the script then immediately reverts to all the known and dreadful clichés of the genre, as a bunch of insufferable teenagers decide to spend the night in the dark ride where the girls died more than 15 years ago. Coincidentally, the maniac responsible escaped from the asylum two weeks earlier, and he naturally will be waiting for a fresh shipment of teenagers to kill. The characters are all annoying stereotypes and you can even easily predict the order in which they'll die. There's the macho stud (who has a huge mouthliterally), the bimbo hitchhiker, the eloquent nerd and the likable chick who's most likely to survive the ordeal. The killer  named Jonah  is very colorless & uninteresting persona and he definitely lacks the charisma to become a new legendary icon to follow up Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers. There's an incredibly stupid and implausible plot twist in the middle of the film (and another one near the end) that make it simply impossible to reward "Dark Ride" with a positive rating. The theme park attraction itself is nicely sinister and horrific, with a lot of hidden death traps and morbid tableaux. The murders are extremely gross, graphic and relentless, so undemanding horror fanatics overall have few things to complain about. Worth a look.