Veronica (Angela Featherstone) is a sexy demon who grows tired of torturing and mutilating lost souls. Eventually, the restless Veronica escapes from Hell and comes to Earth (nude) where she is promptly hit by a car. In the hospital, her doctor (Daniel Markel) becomes smitten with Veronica, and he invites her to live with him. Soon, Veronica uses her dark powers to punish purse snatchers and racist cops before setting out to take down the corrupt mayor.
Written by Matthew (Freeway) Bright and directed by Linda (Inside Out) Hassani, Dark Angel: The Ascent is one of the more ambitious projects from Charles Band’s Full Moon Features. The brief glimpses of Hell are well realized, given the film’s low budget, and the scene where Featherstone roams around her new surroundings nude is kind of dreamy too. After Veronica comes to Earth, things settle down a little bit. It’s here where the film begins to feel like a prototype of a knockoff superhero movie as she uses her occult gifts to become a vigilante who prowls the city at night with her trusty dog, Hellraiser. (The scenes where she drives people crazy by showing them glimpses of Hell are similar to the “Penance Stare” from Ghost Rider.) The ending is a bit anticlimactic, although it’s nothing that derails the fun. The location work is good for a laugh too as the streets of Romania look nothing like the good old US of A.
Featherstone is really good in this, so much so that her performance is basically the whole show. Sure, there are some gory bits like spine removing, throat slashing, and heart ripping, but her engaging deadpan and dead sexy demeanor makes it worth a look. I especially liked the part where she takes her clueless doctor boyfriend on a date to a porno theater (shades of Taxi Driver). Naturally, she gets all the best lines too. My favorite was when a drunk chick started hitting on the doctor and she says, “She wanted to mingle her fluids with yours!”
AKA: Dark Angel.
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