No Cair da Noite

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.

Watched this flick late one saturday night, and I wasn't expecting a lot from this one. But I have to say, as I have watched plenty of so called "horror" films or "thrillers" over the years, this one actually pleasantly surprised me. Sure, the acting was not that good, the plot was, well, rediculous, but damn, this movie was a hell of a lot better than that yawner "One Hour Photo"!! This movie actually did scare me a few times. I got more than I expected from this one, and really don't see why it is getting slammed so bad for. Damn, relax people. Sure there wasn't any nudity or any slashing or gore, but if you really have to have blood and tits to enjoy a movie, you might want to check out the "Faces of Death" series there.

* out of ****

I find it rather hard to believe that in the past year, we've had five movies dealing with vengeful supernatural spirits and/or curses. It began with Feardotcom, then Below, The Ring (easily the best of the bunch), Ghost Ship, and now Darkness Falls, which could very well be the worst. In the latest example of PG-13 horror, there's nothing here that's the slightest bit scary or thrilling. The atmosphere is non-existent, the premise really isn't very promising, and the execution is even more lackluster.

The film has a very simple premise: old lady killed over a hundred years ago is now a restless spirit who goes around murdering children who've lost their first tooth (they also have to see her face first, or something like that, not like the movie was holding my attention). Anyway, after the film dispenses with TWO prologues which takes up nearly fourteen minutes of running time, we settle with our protagonist, Kyle Walsh (Chaney Kley), who encountered this evil tooth fairy as a child and wants to help his former girlfriend's (Emma Caulfield) younger brother through the same ordeal. Naturally, no one believes Walsh and they'll live (well, not for long) to regret it.

Horror is probably my favorite genre, and while last year did give us The Ring (simply one of the scariest films I've ever seen) and Below (an excellent "ghost ship" thriller that's much better than Ghost Ship), most of these big studio genre offerings don't seem to realize what it is that makes horror films so fun to watch. They don't have to be bone-chillers, they just have to be easy entertainment, which is what Darkness Falls strives for, but fails at almost miserably.

First, I'd like to mention the preposterously short running time. Without the end credits, this puppy runs for seventy-four minutes, shorter than your average TV movie sans commercials. Then knock off the prologues, and we've got approximately an hour of material that focuses on the lead actors and their plight. This is obviously a movie that doesn't have much in the way of plot, but you probably figured that when you saw the town's name was Darkness Falls (groan).

The Ring worked because of its chilling atmosphere, engaging mystery, and fine performances. To a lesser but still formidable extent, the same goes for Below. Darkness Falls doesn't have the look and feel of a horror/thriller, it certainly doesn't have enough plot (and what story it has is peppered with plot holes)(you'd think a town this cursed would have almost a minute population, but it's a rather bustling little place), and the acting is subpar. Director Jonathan Liebesman seems perfectly content with trying to give us boo scares (which aren't the slightest bit effective), loud noises, lots of fast camera movements, and lots of running and chasing.

Running and chasing is exactly what fills up the movie's last twenty minutes, when it suddenly opts for thrill ride mode, but even that is as completely unengaging as all the material that came before it. Part of this has to do with how predictable the film is. You just know who's going to live and who's going to die. And even worse, because it's PG-13, you can't even be tantalized by the promise of gore and gratuitous nudity, two staples of 80's horror, which I'm starting to miss more and more.

The major studios are still capable of making effective horror thrillers, as evidenced by The Ring and Below, and let's not forget the superb Jeepers Creepers or Joy Ride. Watch any of those films instead of this steaming pile.