When I went to see the 'Fright Night' remake with a friend of mine, we saw the trailer for 'Don't Be Afraid of the Dark'. It was short, it didn't tell us anything, but we wanted to go see it. Why? Because all the trailer consisted of was darkness, then a demonic face screaming at us. We knew it was coming, but it still scared us. Mostly because of timing, but it was still effective because, like the trailer for 'Coverfield', we wondered what exactly was happening. It made me want to go see it, so as I went into the Odeon in Coventry yesterday and saw it was on, I decided to go see it.
I did notice a problem however; it was rated 15. Blast! How can a trailer for such a film lie to me?! Still, I saw it, and by God I was glad I did.
It focuses on a girl called Sally (played by Bailee Madison) going to stay with her father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes), at a house Alex is restoring. Unfortunately the basement is home to a bunch of fairies who want to consume Sally and make her one of them. Kind of like the "One of us! One of us!" chants from 'Freaks' (1932)/'Spurs' (1923).
And there's your plot. It's nice and simple. Sally has to try and convince her father and his girlfriend that the fairies exist, whilst Kim tries to figure out what exactly is going on. Oh yes, despite the father being a caring father who loves his daughter very much, he doesn't really have much to do. I really do feel that Guy Pearce was greatly underused in this, though he still gives a solid performance.
Katie Holmes and Bailee Madison also give solid performances, with Madison being the highlight. And from what I've heard, having Sally as a child was an improvement on the original where Sally was an adult. And I have to agree with it, a child vulnerable to the demonic little pixies comes off better then an adult being in the same situation.
The supporting cast were brilliant as well. Jack Thompson was an excellent choice to play Harris and Julia Blake gives a good performance as Mrs. Underhill, as were Garry McDonald and Edwina Ritchard as Blackwood and the maid respectively at the start were really good.
But what about the fear factor in this film? The main point of this film? Well, it starts off well. The opening setting sets the right tone with the darkness and silence, then Blackwood doing some amateur dentistry on his maid successfully disturbs the audience. Then the film loses it slightly, mainly because of the 15 rating; as a 15 rating it is scary, but for more experienced film viewers it isn't much. The major scare was the same one we saw in the trailer, the fairy in the bed sheets. Apart from that it wasn't really that scary. But it still has the right tone to keep you on your toes. The film goes more along the thriller route, which was done very well.
Now, when 'The Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence' was banned here in the UK, the director Tom Six stated "Apparently I made a horrific horror film, but shouldn't a good horror film be horrific?". Well, whilst I disagree with the point of Six's statement concerning the BBFC banning his film, I do have to point out that this film (whilst not terrifying) shows a film does not have to be gory or death filled to be scary; all you need is the right tone and setting. Heck, this film almost accomplished a terrifying tone, and only one person died! And I'm not including the two opening people who were killed (well, three I suppose including the kid who was killed off-screen), as it is pretty much by law that every horror film has to have some form of death.`. Whilst I won't tell you who bites the dust, I was pleasantly surprised and glad they took that route, resulting in an exceptionally good ending.
Now the trailer only shows us one glimpse of one of the fairies, which, like 'Cloverfield', wasn't much detail and so we had to go see the film in order to see the fairies; or pixies which was what I thought they were when I was watching the film. But we see what the fairies look like very early on, which effectively ruins that aspect. Not that it ruins the film though. Then again the special effects used, whilst not awful, are glaringly obvious. Now that I think about it, the title of this film is essentially a big lie; it tells us not to be afraid of the dark, even though we have to fear the dark because the fairies love it, and if we're in the darkness the fairies are going to kill us. So why shouldn't we fear the dark? Well, I suppose it's because it's not the dark we have to be afraid of, it's what's in the dark we have to be afraid of; the Vashta Nerada...no...wait that's Doctor Who, I mean fairies.
So, good plot, great acting, meh special effects, great conclusion, near perfect dark and unsettling tone, it's definitely worth watching. It's not perfect, I'll admit that, but it's actually probably the best modern day horror we'll have for a very long time.
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