Monday, January 16, 2012

Movie Review: Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Synopsis: A young girl (Bailee Madison) sent to live with her father (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) discovers creatures in her new home who want to claim her as one of their own.

This has a really nice spooky atmospheric feel and during the set-up there are some pretty good scary moments, but once the creatures are introduced it becomes a bit of a head-scratcher and is pretty sort of any thrills or chills. The creatures are computer-generated and just look like a combo of little old people and rats maybe, and really just sort of yank the story out of reality more than infest it with evil. There's not a lot of gore and really I'm not sure why it's rated R. This seems almost more made for children.

Once introduced, the creatures are seen pretty often and it just sort of reminded me of Gremlins or Critters maybe, minus any comedy. They run around the house, totally unseen by anyone but the young girl, and do all sorts of damage without anybody noticing. When they do get all stabby on a guy it doesn't seem to concern the police or anyone else, they just write it off as an "accident". He must have accidentally stabbed himself repeatedly. The little girl smashes one of the creatures between a bookshelf too but either doesn't show anyone or nobody cares.

Overall though this isn't bad and despite that everything has been done before really but at least here it's mostly done well and is pretty entertaining. I loved the Gothic set designs and the score is fantastic. Most of the performances are fine as well, especially young Bailee Madison, who is fantastic. I say "most of" because I thought Katie Holmes was pretty bad and short on emotion. Her younger counterpart saves their scenes together though.

A watchable, fun and entertaining starter horror film. Nothing too special.

5.5/10

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