Darkness

Review by Jason Gaston

Darkness... What can I say about Darkness?

How about this? Darkness is a decent horror movie trapped inside a very bad horror movie. There's nothing great about this flick other than some very creepy visuals that deserved to be in a better movie and a very cool ending that really doesn't make a lot of sense if you think about it too much.

But, I digress...

Darkness is the story of a family who moves to Spain and end up in a haunted house. The little boy in the family suddenly becomes afraid of the dark, an unseen hand is stealing his pencils as he watches, and even more sinister... something starts beating the crap out of him in the dark.

Of course his parents, being the loving caring parents that a movie like this is required to have... do nothing and think nothing of it.

The father, on the other hand, is slowly loosing his mind. In shades of Amityville, he's irritable, abusive, and obsessive about a picture he wants hung on the wall. You know, the sad thing about this is when the remake of The Amityville Horror comes out later this year, some amateur critic will inevitably accuse it of ripping off this movie.

The only one in the family who has any clue that anything sinister is going on is the teenage daughter played by Anna Paquin. You can tell that she knows something is amiss because she has this horrified look of realization that she was an Oscar winner when she was nine, is one of the stars of one the biggest franchises in history, and is now doing this movie.

Honey, we feel your fear.

Obviously, this movie is a heaping pile of crap leaning precariously from side to side and threatening to topple over. The script is a big pile of nonsense, the story is pretty ludicrous, the story is more like a collection of random scenes than a narrative, and the big reveal of what is going on in the house is like watching some random cartoony villain twirling his moustache and going, "Mwah, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

On the other hand, there are moments in the movie that look really good and really scary. I loved the ultimate ending even if the road to get there was riddled with plotholes that could swallow you alive.

I can't recommend this movie, but I have to say it's got a hell of a visual style. It almost makes poop look good!

Almost.  As it stands, it's the only thing in this movie that works.