It’s nothing new for musical acts to get themselves into the film game. With films like KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, Cool as Ice, and the most horrific of them all, Spice World, history has proven that this is generally not a good idea. Once in a great while however, it works, like David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth. Finnish hard rock band and GWAR worshippers Lordi have decided to attempt and crossover into the realm of cinema with the horror film Dark Floors. Not surprisingly, history has repeated itself and Dark Floors fails at everything it attempts to do, although it may very well be the best comedy of the year.

An autistic child named Sarah has been undergoing numerous tests at a local hospital to try and find out the cause of her sudden affliction. Her father Ben is quickly becoming annoyed by the lack of progress the hospital staff is making on the situation. The final straw comes when a machine scanning Sarah’s brain malfunctions and catches fire while she’s still inside of it. Ben then makes the decision to take his daughter out of the hospital in the middle of the night in search of better treatment. While on their way out, going down in an elevator which is also occupied by a handful of other people, the power in the hospital goes out and the elevator gets stuck. Shortly after, the power is restored, and when the doors open they find themselves in an empty hospital. As they search for an alternate way out of the hospital, things become increasingly bizarre and horrific, and it all seems to center on Sarah.

The film starts off well enough. It oozes an almost Silent Hill like atmosphere, one where you feel just as disoriented and lost as the characters on screen. It weaves a nice mystery that is genuinely intriguing. You’re likely to find yourself wanting to see what’s around the next corner. The fear of the unseen is wonderfully realized. Things seem to be building to something much greater, but then Lordi shows up.

When the band members of Lordi begin to arrive on the scene, the film takes a quick downturn into the realm of comedy. For the most part, the guys look no scarier than Sweetums from The Muppet Show. The costumes don’t look much improved over their stage garb, and rubber-looking teeth and claws abound. Outside of one of the members, named Amen, none of them are shot in a way that makes them frightening or imposing at all. At one point, I was nearly on the floor laughing when one of the members, named Ox, came crashing through a wall attempting to look menacing. I honestly haven’t seen a creature bust through a wall with such conviction since the Kool-Aid Man.

Outside of the entertainment I culled from the band member appearances, the narrative hits a massive wall after the initial cool set-up. It feels like that once the writers managed to come up with a cool premise, they ran out of steam and couldn’t close the deal. The film offers no explanations for anything that happens. It doesn’t even seem to take the lazy “it was all in her head” approach; the ending just sort of happened, and while I’m guessing the writers were attempting something heady and intelligent, they obviously weren’t talented enough to pull it off. I came to the conclusion that they were trying to create a film that mirrored what it would be like to be inside an autistic child’s head, but the ending conveys that everyone was indeed involved with what happened on screen, and the fantasy world the girl drew on paper truly came to life and wasn’t all in her head. So really, there’s no excuse for leaving the film void of explanations.

I do have to give director Pete Riski credit for having a great eye for horror and atmosphere. The cinematography is great, and the film looked much better than I expected it to. As the hospital the characters are trapped in becomes increasingly more decayed, it sets the stage for something that could have been genuinely effective. It’s just that the things that actually lurked in this setting completely worked against the nice backdrop.

Dark Floors is ultimately a complete mess of a film. Posing as a horror film, the film is only really good for a laugh, with monsters that look like killer Muppets. I’m sure you’ll get a kick out of it when the members of Lordi come crashing through walls and make their grand entrances, but everything else will likely have you staring at your watch wondering when the time will arrive when they’ll tell you what the hell is actually going on. Sadly, that time never comes. Even if you’re a fan of the band, approach with caution.