Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark – Troy Nixey, director, 2012
SPANKY: You hear people say, “Why don’t they make movies like they used to?” Then you see an old fashioned horror film like this one, and realize, you can’t get away with that for today’s audiences. Sure the acting is good, the special effects seamless, even the subtext (a young girl’s being bounced from her divorced mother to a father in a relationship with another woman) could prove interesting. The old mansion the father is restoring is rich in sinister mood, but instead of Turn of the Screw, we get screwed. The movie doesn’t allow the characters depth to probe the psychological underbelly of their dynamics. Instead it gives us the expected screams in the dark, scurrying monkey-like creatures and a corny reunification of father and daughter that we all probably want, but are bored silly to get.
BARK (1 BARK out of 4)
JOHN: Good horror provokes the imagination. Makes us wonder what has occured and dread what will happen next. This film makes us wonder when it will be over, what better uses we could have made of the money for tickets and where the hell we parked the car. There’s one good scene where the daughter (excellently played by Bailee Madison) has been taking Polaroid pictures of the creatures she alone sees. She shows one to her father and it is not them, but her screaming. Good place to end the film.
GO (1 GO out of 4)
