Don't Be Afraid of the Dark 2011 Movie Review 217

   

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a 2011 horror movie remake of the 1973 made for TV movie of the same name.It is directed by Troy Nixey and written by Guillermo del Toro. It stars Guy Pearce, Katie Holmes and Bailee Madison.

The film begins with a man called Lord Blackwood. He is living in a huge house but he has a maid with him. He calls her down to the basement where he is working and kills her. He knocks out her teeth and puts them on a plate into some sort of fireplace as an offering. There is something down there and he begs them to give him back his son, but he is dragged down into the pit instead. Cut to present day and a young girl called Sally(Madison) is greeted by her dad Alex(Pearce) and his girlfriend Kim(Holmes). Sally has been dumped on her father by her flaky mother and she is taking some pills for ADHD. She is not very nice to Kim and she wants to go home to her mother. Alex and Kim are renovating the Blackwood house and then they are going to sell it on. The house is huge and Sally is shown to her room. The next day, Sally finds a hidden basement and they all go down into it, despite the warning of a workman, Mr. Harris.

They look around and Sally hears voices from the old fireplace. They know her name. When Alex and Kim aren't around, she opens the old fireplace and lets the creatures in it out. She thinks that they want to be friends. It soon becomes obvious that they are no friends of Sally's. They cause mischief for her and they wander through the house. They steal a razor blade and shred Kim's clothes. Alex thinks that it is Sally and he reprimands her. Sally gets caught at the fireplace by Mr. Harris and he tries to seal it. The creatures are out and they attack him and put him in hospital. Kim begins to wonder about what Sally is telling her. Sally seems so sure that the creatures are real. She goes to see Mr. Harris and he tells her to go to the library and see pictures painted by Lord Blackwood. In them, there are little creatures running around and they want humans to join them in the darkness.

So, Kim starts to believe Sally, but Alex doesn't until he sees them himself and then all hell breaks loose in the house. The creatures take over and cut the lights. They hate light and it sends them running away so Sally has to fight them off with a torch. They get her, though and drag her to the fireplace, intending to bring her with them, but Kim gets in the way and saves Sally. She gets pulled into the fireplace and she is gone. Alex and Sally leave the house. They come back a while later and Sally leaves a picture of Kim in the house. It is blown along by a draught in the house down to the basement where Kim is in the fireplace along with the creatures. They are all waiting for the next victim. Kim tells them they have all the time in the world....

Firstly, I didn't like the fact that they introduced a kid into the story. I thought that this was cliched and done to death! It took away from the story. Secondly I didn't like Katie Holmes in this at all. Talk about bad acting! Horror movies are not known for their great actors, but she is just so bland and uninteresting in this.The creatures were the only thing I did like in it. They were scary and well done, but as for everything else, it wasn't great.Changing the story made this into a run of the mill horror movie where clever kid sees something spooky and draws pictures of it etc etc. It irritated me. Watch the original if you haven't seen it. It is better than this, I promise you. This gets a 3/10.