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Directed by: Jaume Balagueró Starring: Anna Paquin In order to get an idea of how I rate movies, let me begin this review by saying that I am very forgiving with horror films. If it has some great creepy moments I am always satisfied. There are a lot of Horror fans that are extremely critical of the genre. If it isn't a great movie, as well as being scary they get all hot under the collar. I'm not one of those people. Darkness is a pretty basic haunted house type of film. There were some grisly child murders in a mysterious house, the unsuspecting family moves in and...you know the drill. The real pay-off to this film is the house itself. Whoever did the set design for Darkness really put some time into it. There are lots of slow tracking shots that heighten the suspense and make you constantly fear what's lurking in the shadows. The director has a solid understanding of how to pace things, and frames a few really beautiful shots now and then. But most importantly it's a scary movie. Good jump scenes, plenty of creepy ghosts and those quick and loud violent flashback thingies. (my wife hates those) Darkness could have been an outstanding horror film but for two unfortunate fallbacks. The Acting is terrible. Anna Paquin looks like she's on heavy tranqualizers throughout the whole movie. She is completely devoid of emotion. The mother isn't much better, and when the two of them are in a conversation you'll just be dumbfounded. There's a little brother, who manages to pull off the now popular kid who sees ghosts part. The father is neither great nor terrible. He at least pulls off a feeling of menace, which is crucial to the tension of the film. The other problem is the attempt to bring in some big twisty plot at the end. It end's up detracting from what could have just been a great ghost film. But, aside from those points, both my wife and I really had a great time watching this. There are a few great scares that you'll want to rewind and play again. RATING: 3.5 PROS: Some really beautiful set work. Great creepy shots. Good sound. CONS: The acting is horrible ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0273517/
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Jun 14, 2004 21:18
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I didn't really care for this one to much, it had some ok creepy moments but it felt like they kept pulling them back. It looked like a movie aiming for a PG-13 rating as whenever it was about to become really scary it would just cut away or something. Also as the previous review stated it did become to twisty turny towards the end. 2.0/5 Some ok creepy moments but to little.
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Jun 23, 2004 23:05
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If you're willing to forgive its shortcomings, Darkness is actually a fairly solid horror flick. Yes, it relies on the weary "innocent family moves into a house with a dark past" gimmick and the infuriating "wide-eyed kid sees more than everyone else around him" gimmick... and there are plenty of moments when an inscrutable form rushes across the screen in the near foreground and the strings swell as some character or other looks up and realizes that something is not as it should be. Also present and accounted for is the obnoxious sped-up/shaky film work that is somehow meant to convey that some bad bad juju is going down in this mysterious old house. Further, the film is highly derivative, brazenly so. There's a little bit of The Shining, a little bit of Hellraiser and a little bit of Rosemary's Baby to be found in Darkness... and if you're a fan of horror fiction you'll probably recognize a healthy dose of Lovecraft in there as well. With all those strikes against it, it may seem like Darkness isn't worth your time. However, it manages to use elements that would otherwise be distracting and form a somewhat cohesive whole out of them. The derivative material doesn't feel too terribly shoe-horned in and, although the two major twists are telescoped for you in a fairly ham-fisted fashion they aren't entirely unsatisfactory, nor are they robbed of their emotional impact. I was particularly pleased that, despite some heavy over-explaining in the latter half of the film, there was plenty that the film-makers left uneplored, particularly in regards to what is lurking in the shadows of the house. This is is the sort of thing that most horror films neglect terribly and it really can make an otherwise run-of-the-mill story into something that delivers a decent scare. You don't always have to explain what's going on in a horror film and it's sometimes better if you don't bother at all. As far as the acting goes, the cast was competent. Anna Paquin had to carry most of the weight and, while she won't win any academy awards, she managed to covey "conflicted and aloof teen" believably. I'm going to give Darkness a 3.5 Definitely above average for a horror film.
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Jun 26, 2004 12:45
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Yuck, saw this last night, and it was loving terrible. Take every cliched horror movie device and perform it really badly, that is this movie. They sucked at the loud noise to scare people effect, the silhouette walking past the camera effect, as well as many others. There were plenty of occassions where something was supposed to be scary, but instead the audience embarassingly laughed. It tries to be creepy, but just ends up more like WTF? Oh and the ending? God, don't get me started on the ending... I really can't think of anything redeeming about the film, it sucked. 1/5 EDIT: watched Evil Dead 2 later that night, now THAT is what a horror film should be like!
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Dec 26, 2004 20:26
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Just got back from seeing this. Overall I just thought this was a terrible movie. Lots of basic horror cliches were evident, and I'm getting weary of watching the same goddamn "kid who sees ghosts" as someone above pointed out in every horror movie made in the past few years. The acting was pretty sub-par as well, and the characters were completely empty. Some specific gripes that I had with this movie, maybe someone could clear these up: Anna Paquin is given TWO major breaks near the end to stop whatever the hell is going on; first she is told what to do by her grandfather, and then he releases her. Still she cuts her father's throat, despite knowing that's exactly what she SHOULDN'T do. What was with the snake and the egg? Who were the people in the picture with no eyes/wearing sunglasses or whatever? Why was one released from the picture and why wasn't this expanded upon? Why can "fake/dark" Carlos exist outside of the house in the light when the boy said that the evil guys live in the darkness? It also seems like a huge coincidence that the architect of the house happens to live right where Anna Paquin and Carlos are walking by, and that they can find some ancient book in a random library that explains the whole plot. Voted 0.5/5
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Dec 26, 2004 23:25
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Saw this with Carl, his sentiments basically echo my own. I wasn't expecting much, but I got less than I expected. I think my biggest problem was that, put in the same situation, most people wouldn't act the way that any of the characters act. There's no logic to their actions, no character development. It also borrows heavily from The Ring, The Shining, The Others and hopes that we just pass it off as "just another generic horror movie." It's not even B-movie bad, it's just bad. Voted 1/5
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Dec 26, 2004 23:36
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I don't really end up hating movies, but this one made me angry at it for ever being made. Carl Winslow sums it up quite well in terms of the plot holes. It also makes me believe that Anna Paquin can't act. I should've seen The Life Aquatic instead. Don't make my mistake by not listenning to the crappy reviews this film's getting. SAVE YOUR MONEY AND TIME! This is to horror movies what goatse is to porn. 1/5 Raptor10001 fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Dec 29, 2004 |
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Dec 27, 2004 06:53
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Ugh, I just got back from the theaters. Luckily for me, I didn't have to pay to see this. It still wasn't worth my time. A few silly plot holes where the loving poo poo did ghost-demon carlos get that car from? and why did she cut his neck at the end? and some bad acting made me really shake my head on the way out of the theater. It was too unfocused, used way too many cliches the entire meeting of the architect sequence, "you shouldnt have come here." and, cmon, the sound-bank dragon/pterodactyl noises near the end? jesus christ and honestly never conveyed to me just what the point of any of it was. I liked the ending a little, but it would have helped that there was some kind of POINT to anything. Ok, a house, demons, summoning, blah blah. WHY? The plot twists at the end were ok, but still completely pointless. Without a real purpose, this movie just floats and doesn't lead us anywhere. The buildup was almost as long and interesting as the Excorsist, except it never gave way to any kind of release. Horror movie blue balls. Don't waste your time on this. Go see something like Session 9 if you want a decent scary movie. .5/5
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Dec 27, 2004 07:46
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This movie was absolutely terrbile. It tried really hard to have a plot, but it was retarded. No concept in the movie was fleshed out. Something is supposed to happen when the final child dies, but you never even know what should happen or why anything is happening. Plot development is done in short chunks - suddenly the boyfriend calls to say the real estate people who sold the house never existed - suddenly the are looking at a cult book in the library - etc. Lots of things in this movie are silly. Think ghost kids standing around are creepy? You won't after you see it the fifth time. Carl showed many of the plot holes so I won't go into any of them. The film as a whole seemed to have little point and left nothing explained. I didn't use sploiler tags on any of the above because, god forbid, if you did see the movie nothing above is surprising at all - you can figure out almost everything from the opening credits. And in the end everyone dies and the ritual is complete, but we have no idea why that should even matter. Edit: I just realized this movie has a ghost car. How lame is that? Dr Strangepants fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Jan 2, 2005 |
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Dec 30, 2004 06:51
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Apparently there's an original version, which I saw, and the PG-13 version, which is in theaters. I have no idea what the difference is, but I assume violence and swearing were cut. Edit - One thing I found that they did change was the mother's death. Apparently in the theater version she turns off the stove and just disappears. In the original the real kids come down to find blood and tiny bits of flesh all over the walls and ceiling, with the swing set swaying back and forward in the middle of the kitchen. I can imagine this would change the freaky-factor of the eclipse, because such a brutal display of monstrous violence really drilled it in that you did not want to go out of the light. Darkness has an incredible amount of cliches: -Spooky new house -Child who knows whats going on and speaks obtusely -Parental figures who don't pay any attention -Creepy guy who tells them what's going on, also speaks obtusely, and pays for it -People walking past the camera suddenly with a "BRAAARGH" sound effect -Someone developing film to find something creepy in the photo that *gasp* wasn't there before -Barrages of random images of violence and mindfuckery on screen for a split second each There was something plain wrong with the dialogue volume that they apparently did intentionally, making all the voices softly muffled and confusing me as to what they were saying. Combine this with the accents of two of the characters and I had real trouble understanding the lines, and what I did catch was terrible. When they show up in Creepy Guy's apartment and he says "You shouldn't have come here" the room broke into laughter. The same happened when the father finds the hosed up spooky photo and decides to hang it on the wall. It got even louder when the two teenagers suddenly began reading Latin, completely out of the blue, in an old occult book. There's really only one freaky part in the movie and that's at the very end, where the eclipse occurs, which resembles some of the worst of my nightmares. Otherwise there's little story, terrible acting, bad dialogue, and cliche after cliche. Personal - 3 (only because of the eclipse) Technical - 1.5 Rating - 2.5 (rounded) Knight fucked around with this message at 13:07 on Dec 31, 2004 |
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Dec 31, 2004 08:26
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I took my girlfriend to see this movie thinking it would scare her and make her cling to me. I was wrong. This movie should be a comedy, it was so cliche I was predicting what would happen, and I was right every time. "Creepy guy walks by and loud "DUNT!" sound" and "Phone rings with creepy voice followed by exceptionally really loud ring". Now don't get me wrong, I'm a sucker for scary movies, the Ring gave me nightmares, but this movie was so incredibly dumb. The best part is when the boyfriend character says "The Eclipse" really wierd in the library. Rating: 1/5 It's an okay comedy because it's so dumb. ----------------
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Dec 31, 2004 20:25
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I really enjoyed this movie. It was creepy and tense the entire time. The story was good, if a little confusing, and I found it all-in-all to be very enjoyable. 4/5 Edit: Apparently, I'm one of a handful who found this movie tolerable. I don't know what to say. I think some people want too much from their movies. I have low expectations for anything Hollywood churns out, so when something is enjoyable, it's always a pleasant surprise. If you have very high expectations, you probably won't care for this movie. If you have very low expectations, you'll enjoy this movie. I don't even mean that in a bad way. That Dang Dad fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Jan 3, 2005 |
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Jan 3, 2005 09:34
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Darkness is absolute garbage. In recent years, I've seen a disturbing trend in horror movies. The directors of these films, lacking the talent to create an atmosphere of dread instead utilize "jump scares" to creep out the audience. It's getting tiresome. The Japanese have been producing creepy, atmospheric horror movies for quite some time. The telling fact of how bad American horror films have become is when Japanese horror movies are remade - at the cost of everything that made them scary to begin with. While Darkness, unfortunately, is not a remake of a better Japanese film, it belongs in the canon of terrible American horror movies. The plot can be summed up rather easily. A family, having just moved into a remote house in the Spanish countryside, discovers their house holds dark secrets - specifically things that appear only when it's completely dark. I don't know where to begin citing this film's faults. We'll start with the acting. I have no idea how Anna Paquin got an Oscar. Honestly. She is terribly wooden in this movie. Quite frankly, no one in the family acts like a drat family. Their interactions are horribly forced, so much so that it began to bother me 30 minutes into the film. There is no creepy atmosphere in this movie at all. The director resorts to the afore-mentioned "jump scares" at points in the film when absolutely nothing scary is happening. There should be no need for such cop-outs in a horror movie. The plot is thread-bare and ripe with holes, not to mention that it is insulting. The characters have to explain, point blank, things that I was able to figure out on my own. It's always better to show than tell, but apparently the screenwriter forgot about this. The movie breaks its own rules at key points in the movie, seeming to show that those responsible for the movie didn't care enough about it to keep any sort of consistency. Finally, the ending is so disgustingly abrupt that it renders watching the entire film, and caring about any of its characters, completely pointless. In short, if you go to the movies simply to kill time with random images and sounds, you'll enjoy this film. If you expect the movies you watch to possess some modicum of intelligence, you will hate this film with every fiber of your being. Rating: 0.5/5 Rabid Koala fucked around with this message at 07:41 on Jan 8, 2005 |
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Jan 8, 2005 01:50
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Horrible movie. The plot was all over the place, and when it wasn't being confusing as hell, it was just retarded and cliche. I'll admit, I was pretty spooked by that picture with the three grandmas, but that's about it. The theatre was in constant laughter throughout the whole thing (well, the half of the audience that stayed to actually finish the film anyway). The ending speaks for itself. 0.5/5 Sledgehammer fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Jan 8, 2005 |
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Jan 8, 2005 03:45
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Pyxis and Meteorite go to the Movies This really really sucked. Pros: Carlos was kinda hot, lots of unintentional hilarity. Cons: Everything else. Voted 0.5/5
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Jan 15, 2005 08:52
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Pyxis and Meteorite go to the Movies - Part II I went into the theater under the delusion that I was seeing a horror movie, and found a comedy instead. They seemed to have tried to create a plot but instead ended up with a mesh of a "story" that really makes absolutly sense in the end. Acting wasn't spectacular...or even very good, in fact I think I cringed everytime the mother was on screen,(Oh and loved the idea of a smoking nurse). Beyond the bad plot was how contrived the whole thing was. Nobody acted in an even remotely normal or consistant fashion. Scary? Nah. Not even and really good make you jump moments. A shadow passingby a doorway every two minutes accompanied by a sound effect is as good as it gets. Fir all it's faults, I would say it was a somewhat enjoyable experience. I did laugh quite a bit. Pros: Good for laughs. Cons: The Darkness 1/5
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Jan 15, 2005 11:13
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Awful movie. Anna Panquin practically whispers all of her dialogue and shows very little range of emotion. One of the more "spookier" parts of the movie is a scene where a coloring pencil rolls underneath a bed, and that sequence is repeated three times. To critique this movie any further is to give credence to it's "artistic efforts", where none were found. I'm going to throw this movie at the Blockbuster clerk who recommended it, and kick him in the balls. Pros: Anna has a nice rear end. Lena Olin is hot for an old broad. Cons: Everything else. Rating: 0.5/5
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May 6, 2005 06:12
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Just saw this on DVD last night and felt compelled to warn people about it. This was one of the worst horror movies I have seen. I think It could have been a whole lot better if they concentrated on the drat plot. The amount of unexplained crap in this movie is ridiculous. The only real scare I got was when The creepy picture had 2 scary grandmas instead of 3 Pros/I didn't pay for the rental. Semi interesting story. Scary picture. Cons/Bad acting, Gaping plot holes, lots of confusing poo poo left unexplained.
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May 17, 2005 10:17
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This is one of the worst movies I've seen in recent years. Everything is awful-- the cliched plot, the terrible acting, the ridiculous ending. Do not watch this movie. 0.5
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Jun 2, 2005 02:52
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I am generally not a big fan of horror movies, but my boyfriend loves 'em, so we saw this. I don't have much context to judge this movie in vs other horror films, as I haven't seen very many, and I had low expectations for the movie, having seen some commercials that I thought were pretty funny looking for it. I left this movie feeling very confused. The super "creepy" dead kids don't seem to actually do anything, the plot went around and around, and nearly every character acted quite stupidly. Why the main character didn't, say, call child services when she thought that her dad was beating her brother is beyond me. Most of the scare in this came from the usual quick jump/loud sound/fast-motion bullshit, and beyond halfway through it I couldn't bring myself to find it frightening. The most confusing part is the ending, however. Why did the grandfather let her go at the last second? How did the 'darkness' manifest itself as a car and fake boyfriend in broad daylight? The story feels half-developed and really non-sensical. However, it did make me jump a few times. I give this film a 2/5.
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Jun 5, 2005 00:56
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If only I could give a lower rating then .5, this movie deserves it. Instead of explaining what the hell is going on, this movie pulls out stupid horror movie cliches to fill up time. Rating: 0.5
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Jun 5, 2005 06:31
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Just caught this on the movie networks, and thought I'd post some thoughts. First of all, I enjoyed the movie. It had its shortcomings (like the initially clichéd premise, the twins straight out of the Shining, and hollowness of some of the acting), but overall the film still overcame these. What I appreciated was that it started out as your standard "Family moves into a new home, dad becomes mentally unstable" fare, but developed into something better. The history behind the house complicated matters, and reversed many of the apparently "clichéd" elements. It wasn't just another "is he crazy or is it the house?" movie, but rather a slow and pathos-filled look at the eradication of a family and the release of darkness into the world. As far as the actual antagonist goes, I thought the "darkness" worked rather well. Sure, the sunglass-men were a bit over-the-top, but the darkness itself was low-key and atmospheric. It definitely refrained from the flashy, in-your-face CGI-laden look of the majority of current horror movie villains. And the manifestation as loved ones at the end of the movie was far more effective than any "scary" monster would have been. One of my favourite points was the sequence where the mother and the two children are trapped in the house, and the house is using doppelgangers of them to attempt to kill them. I guess you can go in and rip this movie apart, but to get anything out of it you can't spend the whole time looking for similarities to other movies. There are so many that it's pointless, because the film never needs to rely on these. It employs some, and twists them to make them into something new. Sometimes it works well, and others it feels too derivative, but on the whole it's miles ahead than the current glut of gore-ridden slasher flicks. 3.5/5 Carl Winslow posted:Anna Paquin is given TWO major breaks near the end to stop whatever the hell is going on; first she is told what to do by her grandfather, and then he releases her. Still she cuts her father's throat, despite knowing that's exactly what she SHOULDN'T do. My feeling is that he wasn't planning on releasing her at first. He was just going to kill her or incapacitate her until he was sure the mother (Lena Olin) cut the father's throat. But then Anna Paquin said that (a) the mom probably wouldn't be able to do it and (b) she started whispering "I love you" over and over about her father. So the grandfather let her go, because he realized that the mom could never do it, but that Anna Paquin would be willing to. Paquin, even though she knew the stakes, couldn't watch her dad die. She tried to save him, and it would have worked if the darkness hadn't snagged the tube. So yeah, she was silly for not being prepared, but her decision was to let her dad die, or try to save him. She made a pretty logical choice. Carl Winslow posted:Why can "fake/dark" Carlos exist outside of the house in the light when the boy said that the evil guys live in the darkness? I just figured that since the ritual with the eclipse was finally completed, the darkness could now extend its influence outside the house, and although it was at its most powerful in total darkness, it was no longer entirely confined there.
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Dec 10, 2006 01:09
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