A troubled young artist is haunted by her own creation but it could just be mental illness working its horrible magic. Leah Garrison creates the titular spooky character for her graphic novel and he soon pops into her world. He’s also played by Stephen McHattie in grey face-paint, so it has that going for it. Leah is prone to hallucinations and past trauma has her agoraphobic and depressed so we can’t trust that the supernatural is actually peeking into our world. McHattie also plays an art curator named Randall Toth who is putting on a show concerning the art of artists who have dealt with depression and wants to showcase her mother’s work. Flashbacks reveal Leah’s mentally ill mother committing suicide after an argument with her daughter so she at least has a reason to act like the awful person she’s acting like. I guess. I don’t know, moody people are annoying. After a nasty talk with her brother, Leah cuts her wrist (not in the life-ending technique but in the teen cutter technique) and rubs it on some paper which creates the Dark Stranger and inspires her to create a dark fantasy tale. So she’s happy for the inspiration… at first. Bad things start going down and she’s blaming the fictional fiend she may or may not have brought into this world. There’s cuts to the lame comic animation, an attractive TA that may hold the key to getting Leah out of her shell, chats with a shrink to fill in some info, poor digital effects to break the tedium and a last-act reveal that answers all questions and is kind of silly. Leah’s papa is played by Enrico Colantoni and I’m always happy to see him (Veronica Mars represent!). The family drama had my eyes rolling but I’m also somewhat of an asshole so you may not want to rely on my opinion. The cast is solid for the most part but everything else is either uncomfortably corny or laughably daft… it’s not a good combo.
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