Blu-ray Review: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

Blu-ray Reviews, Reviews

Since Guillermo del Toro is a brand name nowadays his name is the main selling point of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, a horror flick that did well enough in the dog days of August this past summer and is a fun enough time waster but is hardly going to enhance his reputation. It is safe and softish and skates awfully close to territory he has already covered in The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. Once again we find a child at the center of the story, her name is Sally (Bailee Madison) and she is an LA kind of girl (what with her pill popping and weekly shrink sessions) who is being relocated rural Rhode Island so that she can live with her father Alex (Guy Pearce) and soon to be step-mother Kim (Katie Holmes). They are moving into a very old gothic style mansion with the intent of flipping it for a fortune (with an assist from an influential magazine, of course), but, needless to say, this too good to be true cash cow is sitting on a few secrets of it’s own. . .in this case it happens to be an army of six inch tall monkey-looking monsters who live in the basement and survive (get this) off of the sustenance provided by children’s teeth.

The most interesting thing I found through the first half of so was the complete lack of edge that this film displayed. Del Toro can make whatever movie he wants but there does seem to be something a bit disingenuous about shouting his name from the rooftop and then selling a product which seems to stray so far away from what his art provides. This is not a body count movie, which is a good thing as there aren’t just gratuitous killings slapped on screen to titillate frat boys but there are scenes early on in which blood is spilled only it is done so off screen. The camera does a great job of cutting away the second any sort of laceration takes place which is an interesting strategy considering the blood lust this genre’s fans often bring in with them. But if they aren’t going to sell blood and guts the question becomes what were the producers of this film selling exactly. The best I could come up with is that either they were resting on del Toro’s name or that they had an incredible amount of confidence in their story. Assuming, idealistically, that it is the latter they weren’t entirely wrong but it is a shame that the second half has to bail out everything that came before because the total package could have been so much stronger.

Sally, who is supposed to be our guide to this world didn’t really click with me. We all know that simply by having a flesh and blood, non-demon possessed female under the age of 12 in your movie pretty much means that your audience is forced into taking her side. They bolster the case for Sally by giving her two sets of douchy parents who neglect her throughout but also refuse to believe her story about the creatures who are trying to steal her teeth. But what if Sally also happens to just be a loser? Should we still side with her and if yes, why? To me Sally came off as a snooty little brat who really didn’t have any likeable parts of her personality. I am also more than aware that her father is a jerk who cares more about his career than his daughter but you have to at least cut him some slack on not believing her about the monsters as most any person who know would act the exact same way. Kim is the first one to catch on that something funky may be going on but she is kind of a dim bulb so even when she is implored to remove Sally from the home she wastes time gallivanting around town on some fact finding mission. The writers try and flesh out their story by building in this backstory for the bad guys that is traced back to Pope Sylvester II (You’ll remember him as the scandal plagued Pope who could never shake the rumors that he rose to power thanks to a she-demon). It’s all predictable and contrived but it is all in the service of a large fireworks display at the end that allows director Troy Nixey to take the gloves off and show us what he is working with.

Those scenes that come together to form an extended climax are really the reasons to give Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark a chance. It begins with a dinner party that Alex is throwing for the magazine he is trying to woo. It comes off as perfectly constructed, beautiful, and, dare I say, original in it’s own little way. It also wins high marks for the visuals used throughout as the CGI at play here is flawless, especially in relation to the monsters that were created. My main beef is with the script (co-written by del Toro) which suffers from either laziness of a fear of success. Pan’s Labyrinth is so good that it really negates a reason for this film to even exist because it just feels like a posing, wannabe little brother. That said I’d still give it the slightest of recommendations (hopefully you can see it in an non-expensive capacity) because honestly the horror genre is such a sloppy mess that even when something as problematic as this movie comes along you have to recognize the murk that they have risen above.



The special features provided on this disc are a little slight. We get an art gallery that shows all of the different creatures that were thought up for this film. It is a very extensive slideshow and unless you are really into that kind of thing there is no reason to go through the entire conceptual art galleries. There are also three short documentaries that focus on different aspects of the filmmaking process. One deals with the home that sit dead center in the movie, another on the story and the third, again, on the creatures. That one is worth it to watch one of the artists admit that “old people” were inspiration for the ugly monsters that terrorize this film. I went through all of the special features in less than a hour which is fine I just wouldn’t give them glowing grades for their effort.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment presents Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Directed by: Troy Nixey. Starring: Bailee Madison, Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce, Bruce Gleeson. Written By: Matthew Robbins and Guillermo del Toro. Running time: 99 minutes. Rating: R. Released on DVD: January 3, 2012. Available at Amazon.com.