New Release Review - Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark

Directed by: Troy Nixey
Starring: Bailee Madison, Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce
They say if you live in a city you're never more than ten feet away from a rat. I can confirm this, having lived in two apartments that at some stage had unwanted rodent tenants. At one point I had to leave the lights on at night but one night the electricity went so I was helpless and stayed awake all night absolutely shitting myself. This fear of losing your household dominance to a nocturnal creature was what made the original TV movie so effective. In this godawful remake they seem to have lost sight of that concept.

Madison plays a young girl who moves into a renovated mansion with her father Pearce, and his new wife Holmes. The mansion is infested by creatures who can only move around in the dark. At least that was meant to be the idea but the creatures seem to be able to move around in any kind of light, leaving the viewer totally confused as to what their deal is.
That's just one of the movie's issues. It always feel like a cheap move when the central protagonist in a horror movie is a kid. The film-makers presume the audience will empathise with Madison but her character is such a little bitch from the start that you can't get behind her.

Everything feels cheap and hokey, nothing more so than the awful score, it seems to play over every second of the film and is completely overbearing. Compare this to the original which had one of the creepiest scores you'll ever hear.
Director Nixey has a past as comic book illustrator and if his debut effort is anything to go by he certainly has no future in film.
2/10

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