The Dark

OK while not a great film it is very suspenseful. i saw this movie almost 3 month's ago at the Cardiff film festival an i can tell u that the cinema was packed an at the end of the film it got a great applause because of the suspense it held throughout the film! on the whole a throughly enjoyable film i found this too be a film with a level of suspense that i have not seen in many supposed thrillers in a number of years. yes i'll agree that the film didn't have a storyline that truly linked together but this is becoming a much more common trend in many films now. Also the film is made all the more enjoyable because it is a British made film showing the quality of films that can come out of this country when we try to make a good film.

This movie was pretty good. The acting was very good since they had a good cast. I enjoyed the girl playing the daughter and the other girl that comes later in the flick. We got a chance to see this movie for free, so no worries. It's worth renting if your in the mood for a suspenseful flick. It goes along with movies like half-light where a mother is stressing over their child for some reason or another. It could have been a lot better. The script was lacking in some parts, and the end was somewhat lackluster and confusing. I like it, nonetheless, but probably wouldn't watch it again. I'd suggest renting it though if your in the mood for a suspense flick.

As a huge fan of horror movies, I give pretty much everything in this category a chance. I had never heard of this movie before, just stumbled upon it at the video store. I know a lot of people think it was a stereotypical horror movie but I jumped A LOT. And to be honest, I didn't always see the frights coming. I do see similarity between The Ring and The Dark but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I am still a little unsure about the ending but I guess that happens sometimes in this category. The camera work made it a little difficult at times to see but I guess it is called The Dark for a reason. The little girl was creepy which seems to be a requirement for child roles in horror movies. All and all I would say it's worth a peek.

The Dark is OK for its day but The Hallow (2015) and The Daisy Chain (2008) are much better Celtic movies dabbling in local myth. The Dark is a pretty ad hoc jumble of bits and pieces (past/present, real/dreaming, myth/crime, etc) strung together in what seems like, to me, an attempt to make a 90 minute movie out of only 60 minutes of material. In the last half a lot of sequences look very similar to previous sequences, although I admit the idea was torture and descent. Mind you, The Dark did try to make sheep seem spooky, and one has to admire the attempt. For looks it's very similar to The Daisy Chain, indeed, that movie may have seen what was working or not working in The Dark and proceeded appropriately. In the end the story does make sense, and it is a very chilly conclusion. I still enjoyed it, and it is original to a degree. My main criticism is that the filmmakers needed to make this a darker journey and not such an action movie for the Mum. It needed more pauses, more shocks, and better shocks, maybe a storm, the odd spider. The Dark, however, still tackles a difficult premise to pull off, and in this it has made an accomplishment.

Can a horror film be scary and boring at the same? The Dark has an extremely good effort – about equivalent to lifting one's little finger. The plot shows all the attention span of someone reading a Welsh mythology after smoking several reefers. Formulaic scare-mongering knocks you out of your seat at regular intervals, though without enlivening the story or characters much, the most interesting of which, a girl called Ebrill, is temporarily back from the dead after a number of misled churchgoers and nigh on a flock of sheep have been offered in her place.

Young Sarah arrives with her mum at a remote cottage on the Welsh coast where her dad is staying. Legends, hallucinations, nightmares of sheep and people going over a nasty bit of cliff abound and we hear of how it might be possible for some people to pop back and forth between this world and the next – at a price.

Director John Fawcett, who showed promise and originality with Ginger Snaps, has here gone for banality enlivened by the most unashamed editing. If you flash a very sudden, very bright image at someone, and simultaneously make a very loud noise, they will jump. Traditionally, filmmakers have used this technique to emphasise a plot turn – the appearance of the bogey-man, monster, serial killer. Fawcett doesn't bother, he just inserts it. One minute you're watching the sleep-inducing story and the next you are shocked awake by a loud crash together with a bright light. Explain it to yourself as a deep insight into the unsteady mind of one of the characters? Well if I was a character in such an insipidly put together movie I'd probably need to be deranged for fun too. The trouble with this technique is that there is no plot momentum to keep you excited until the next loud bang. After the first two, I started trying to predict the next one (wait for a false alarm, then a lull, then the bang) and with reasonable accuracy till I lost interest.

It picks up a bit towards the end, and the scares are scary, however contrived. All in all it's standard Saturday night horror fare, nothing that special. If you don't mind the clichés, sit back and go whaaaaaa (as I did!)