Guillermo del Toro
UNLEASHES HIS HORROR
STORY THIS WEEKEND
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Director:Â
Troy Nixey
Stars:
Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce and Bailee Madison
Â
By Marisa Ings
Troubled little Sally’s (Bailee Madison) mother casts her off and sends her to live with her dad (Guy Pearce), Alex, and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes). As Sally unloads her emotional baggage into the gothic mansion that Alex and Kim are renovating, she begins to hear raspy whispers coming from within the mansion walls. Dejected and feeling neglected, Sally is determined to find and play with her new friends that in reality are playing her…
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a remake of a popular 70’s television movie with the same name. Out of curiosity, I read the original film’s summary but there was nothing to compare. The remake is an exact replica of the original with nothing distinguishing one from the other except for the change of Sally as a young girl instead of a grown woman.
The first few minutes of the film gets bloodcurdling scary and sets the bar high for the rest of the film, but unfortunately as the film progresses it begins to fall flat. The rest of the story movies along at a pretty fast pace adding some chilling moments leading to a very disturbing ending with an extreme twist.Â
The film’s setting is eerily creepy with the mansion being the epitome of a haunted mansion with the brick walls and arch doorways. Although the place could be attractive to people looking for a huge estate, I know if I were Sally, I wouldn’t want to live there.
Overall, there were some chilling moments but the film itself was more irritating to me than petrifying. There are way too many close calls and instances where Sally’s curiosity gets carried away. Also, once you actually see the CGI creatures, they aren’t as terrifying as the magical marketing gurus would have you believe in their trailer. The pipsqueak terrors are only powerful in numbers. However, the back-story behind their existence is intriguing and I would have liked to see more on that subject.
I judge scary films by whether or not I have to sleep with the lights on and let’s just say… I slept like a baby (C )