I'm Afraid It Wasn't Great

This weekend, I went to see the new horror film Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. There were two big draws here:

First, it's written in part by Guillermo del Toro, the writer-director of the very good film, Pan's Labyrinth. That movie is full of unsettling and creepy images and scenes; it seemed to me that if the same man turned his attention to creating a true horror movie (as opposed to a film with horrific elements), the results could be excellent.

Second, it's a remake of a well-regarded 1973 made-for-TV movie of the same title. I've never seen the original. I had to look it up and read a synopsis (after seeing this remake) to learn how closely the new film followed the original. (Answer: sort of.) But many people (including del Toro) talk of how profoundly scary they found this old movie to be. I figure if scares that intense were achieved on a TV budget in the early 1970s, there had to be an excellent core to the tale that could be the germ of a successful remake.

In this incarnation, a dating couple (on a likely path to marriage) has undertaken the restoration of a centuries-old mansion. The man's daughter from a previous marriage comes to live with them, and discovers a previously unknown basement. Tantalizing whispers from a locked up fireplace grate entice the girl to open up a shaft into a dark subterranean pit. Now free, the creatures from below are trying to claim the girl for their own.

Overall, the movie was a disappointment, failing to live up to the (possibly unfair) expectations I'd had for it. It wasn't a total loss, though. The little girl, Bailee Madison, is an excellent young actress. Her character really is the protagonist of the film, and she is its true star (despite the presence of Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce). Other horror films have included children and put them in jeopardy, but offhand, I really can't think of another example of a horror movie where the child really is the main character like this. (Even The Sixth Sense really shares main character status between a child and an adult; and that movie is arguably not horror in the sense that this movie is.) In any case, this choice works completely, thanks to the casting of a great young actress.

The first chunk of the film is effectively scary. While the menace was mostly left to the imagination, coming across just as evil laughter and raspy whispers, it definitely made my hair stand up. But ultimately, we get to see more. (And hey, minor spoiler alert on the rest of this paragraph if you want to bug out.) These eight-inch tall demons have a creepy character design to them, and the movie does show them doing serious damage... yet it's just hard to ever take an army of Lilliputians as a serious threat, no matter how evil they look. The whispers were far more scary.

In fact, to make this evil seem credible, the script has to make the characters quite dumb to fall into their clutches. While it's true that nearly every horror movie has an obligatory "seriously, you're doing that?!" moment, this movie is built almost entirely from them. What starts out scaring you ends up making you constantly ask, "these are your choices in this situation? Wow, really?"

In short, it starts out with promise and then flies right off the rails. I'd call it average overall, though the solid performance of Bailee Madison inclines me to nudge it a bit up the scale. I'd rate it a C+. A horror aficionado might indulge the urge to check it out (now, or later on DVD), but others need not apply.