60% Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark

I have long been a supporter of the R-rated horror movie, a subgenre that's been struggling for a long time now. There hasn't been a high profile adult horror release since Orphan, which didn't do all that well financially but is absolutely worth a revisit once you can divorce it from that ridiculous twist. (You could also argue Splice, but that had about half the promotion and half the success.) It's with a heavy heart that I must say that Don't Be Afraid of the Dark isn't going to kickstart its failing milieu at all. It's written and directed by first-timer Troy Nixey, and it feels like a debut film on all fronts. His <a href="http://www.northfacesales-discount.com/men-north-face-down-vest-c-2.html"><strong>the north face jackets</strong></a> strengths are apparent almost immediately - the film starts off with a gorgeous, dark flourish, and rarely lets up on its shadows Victorian-gothic charms. Clearly his eye for image is what landed him the gig, because past that, he has very little else to offer. By far the roughest part of the movie is its writing, which absolutely lurches. The pacing of the scenes feels totally unintuitive; nearly every one ends with young Sally being caught by an adult right as she discovers a secret, then stopping short of leaving the frame just as said adult does, re-approaching whatever she was looking at before, hearing voices, and then leaving. It's like Nixey had no idea whatsoever how to close any of his scenes meaningfully except for the whispering of these little beasties. When he needs to advance his plot, he does it in graceless and cliched ways, with such horror chestnuts as The Child Being Held Responsible For a Heinous Act and The Dinner Party Gone Horribly Wrong and The Shocking Revelation in a Library. That's not to say that these tropes can't be executed well...but they aren't. They're empty. No repercussions on the plot whatsoever. He's also unwilling to commit a character to any sort of consistent viewpoint - does Kim believe her stepdaughter, or doesn't she? The film tiptoes around any sort of potential solutions to these problems by simply keeping the characters <a href="http://www.straightenerghduk.com/"><strong>ghds uk</strong></a> from making a concrete decision about anything. And with that out of the way, let's look at the film's scare factor head on - that's why you go to see a horror movie, right? The first half is pretty ########ing sinister, and it truly and absolutely earns its one strongest jump scare, but after that it's completely downhill, no questions asked. This is simply because the creatures aren't all that frightening. They're a bit goofy, a bit creepy and mostly sort of awkward - they fit into the pseudo-fairy story narrative that Nixey attempts to weave, but don't carry much menace once they've been totally unveiled. Aside from doing very little, and certainly not much that would earn the film its baffling R rating (I'm assuming it's because a child is in constant peril?), they're too clumsy to be all that frightening or intimidating.The film's final gut punch is Katie Holmes. Honestly, I want her to succeed, but she really is not much of an actress. She's at the very least maternal, so her interactions with Sally are convincing, but Sally's not even her most common scene partner. Against Guy Pearce's totally blank role, she flounders, pulling what are supposed to be mounting tensions and depressions out of thin air. As an art history buff, she's barely passable; as an art history buff tasked with renovating a sinister old house, raising a moody and problematic stepchild, and trying to come to grips with the fact that something is wrong in said house, she simply doesn't cut it. She can barely muster up the energy to seem scared when she finally is confronted with the old mansion's secrets. Not to keep drawing comparisons to Orphan, but Holmes ain't Farmiga, and the movie truly does suffer for it.For all my problems with it, it does have its strengths. Again, the first half is very good, the art direction and cinematography are gorgeous (if perhaps a little obvious) and Bailee Madison gives a pretty exceptional child <a href="http://www.monclerjacketscoats2011.com/moncler-mens-vest-c-8.html"><strong>moncler coat</strong></a> performance. At the end of the day, you could easily do worse, but Don't Be Afraid of the Dark simply feels unfinished. I got the sense that this was a draft or cut that I wasn't supposed to see yet, right down to the use of Comic Sans in the end credits. I recommend giving it a shot, but don't think that del Toro's attachment guarantees a flawless product. August 19, 2011