Die Legende von Darkness Falls

Darkness Falls follows a somewhat similar plot line as the previous year's entry in the genre,They,with a few differences.One,Darkness Falls has a fairly well fleshed out back story.Two,the acting is generally fairly good.three,the monster has a reason for being,a motivation for its actions.also,the monster has a weakness,which can be exploited.the core storyline is descent for this genre.the movie is better paced and much better edited.the monster itself is however,not so great.the look of the creature isn't the problem.the problem are its movements,which do not look authentic in some scenes.now,the characters themselves--very little in the form of character development.pretty much your stock horror characters.none too bright and reacting in ways which real people(hopefully)would not.yet,strangely likable somehow.you kind of take pity on them.suspense--there were some tense moments.there was a fair amount of action.however,at times the film became chaotic--lots of sounds and sights all at once,including the music.the purpose,to pretend to entertain the viewer,well hiding the movie's shortcomings.in essence disguising the fact that the movie isn't achieving its intended purpose.in this case,frightening the viewer or at least heightening his or her anxiety.and now the ending.it does nicely resolve things.no cheap setup for a sequel here.i think it's a better movie than They.is it a good movie?yes.it has some tense moments with a few decent action sequences and a decent,straightforward ending without the usual unexpected(but really expected))twist.for me,Darkness Falls is a 6.5/10

In this horror flick the tooth fairy is evil and it comes for children when they lose their last tooth and then it kills them (or others) if they look at it. Chaney Klay plays a young man who once survived a tooth fairy assault that killed his mother and now he returns years later to help his old girlfriend (Emma Caulfield of "Buffy" fame) and her young brother who are now being terrorized. The logic of the storyline comes and goes as eventualy the tooth fairy causes a power outage in the town (seems it doesnt like light!) and starts reducing the population pretty quickly. The film does have its share of scares and decent moments, but the performances are weak and the plot leaves little room for character development so we move quickly from plot point to plot point to death scene. GRADE: C-

Up front: I've just read other IMDb members' reviews of Darkness Falls, and if this isn't just the darndest case of "I-must-have-been-watching-a-different-movie" that I've come across! The following is clearly a VERY brief minority report.

Decent acting, good story flow, nice special effects for the budget, honest scares, fine gore-avoidance, entertaining mood-setting opening credits, and cliches up the whazoo. A solid 6 out of 10.

This, from a jaded, cynical old-timer.

Darkness Falls follows closely in style to films like John Carpenter's "The Fog". The modest budget of the film is offset by an imaginative use of style, lighting and sound.

All the negative reviews on this film have me wondering if today's horror film aficionados are so jaded that they have forgotten that sometimes a visit to a fun house can be as much fun as spending an hour or two with Hannibal Lector. If you can give up your concept of needing to be hit over the head with shock, you can have a good time with the film. It's not a dog by any measure.

This is an old fashioned scary movie. It's a "Popcorn Film". It does not pretend to be high art. The tight running time is a credit the director. In short...it was not great, it was not bad, it was a fun little ride.

Kyle Walsh (Chaney Kley) returns to the small town of Darkness Falls to help his childhood girlfriend, Caitlin Greene (Emma Caulfield), whose brother is hospitalized with severe night terrors. It seems that a town legend of the "Tooth Fairy" is haunting his imagination, and Walsh had similar experiences. Is the "Tooth Fairy" more than just a childhood myth?

It's so much fun watching films multiple times. It's very rare that my opinion remains the same on a film from one viewing to the next. Sometimes my rating goes down, sometimes it goes up, and sometimes it stays the same, but I like or dislike the film for different reasons than I did on my first viewing. Darkness Falls (2003) is a case where my rating has gone up quite a bit since my last encounter with it. I think the difference this time was for two primary reasons--one, when I first saw this in the theater it was in the midst of a slew of horror films that had similar themes, and maybe I was getting tired of it by the time I watched this one, and two, I think the positive aspects worked well enough for me this time that I was more forgiving of the few flaws the film has.

And it does have flaws. Let's get those out of the way first. The main flaw for me was some of the super-fast editing during the horror "action" scenes. Occasionally it was so fast that I couldn't very well tell what was going on. However, I also realized this time that at least occasionally, the editing is perfect for the scene. For example, there is a scene set the small town police station that is inherently chaotic. Chaotic editing is the only thing that would fit.

The other flaw is that there are occasional lapses in plot logic. The most crucial for me occurred during the climax, where there were a couple actions taken that I was a bit confused about. It didn't help that the climax is also slightly marred with hyperactive editing.

However, in both of those cases, the good stuff far outweighed the bad for me. The villain in Darkness Falls is excellent in conception and design. The backstory is captivating. When it's initially told through a "slideshow" during the opening credits, I was thinking that I would have preferred them to give me a 10-minute historical prologue, but in retrospect, I'd prefer to see an entire film that's a prequel telling the villain's story. I loved the small town setting of the film, and the interactions of the characters in the script. They seemed like real people to me, with entwined pasts. I loved the three main characters, and thought their performances were very good. Since I'm a big Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan, that might have supplied Emma Caulfield with some unconscious bonus points, but I loved her acting here.

What really matters in a film like this is the horror material, and director Jonathan Liebesman handles it skillfully. Although I'm not usually a fan of modern films having shorter running times (it was more understandable back in the days of literal A and B films on the same bill at a theater), Darkness Falls is compact because there is little "dead time" between the suspenseful material. Liebesman only spends as much time as necessary with "serious drama" to amplify the horror. These types of scenes were handled well enough to make me either forget or not care if there were any rules broken when it comes to keeping the villain at bay.

Although I'm not someone who finds films scary, I can see Darkness Falls working for many viewers in terms of frights. Many primal fears are touched upon. There is an excellent extended bit in complete darkness (you only hear the soundtrack), and of course darkness and things coming out of the darkness is a major theme throughout. You also get scenes of claustrophobia, loss of control, elevators, hospitals, and many other situations that should work on more receptive viewers' sensibilities.

This one is worth seeing, but approach it more in the frame of mind of a fun roller-coaster ride than a literary masterpiece.