Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Well. Where to start?

This is a film that starts badly, and save two relatively well executed scenes, gets worse. If you have seen the original seventies TV movie you will be sorely disappointed. What made the original frightening was the bareness of the plot, the ordinariness of the location and the bleakness of the ending. All of these elements have been removed. The story is over written, the location of overly ornate, and the ending, although quite nasty, is not as disturbing as it should have been. Add to this the frankly deplorable CGI and iffy direction. Well...

The kid is good though (that's where the 4 points comes from)

Verdict: Don't be afraid of avoiding don't be afraid of the dark

The idea behind DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK has potential. It's a remake of one of those classic 1970s TV horrors with Guillermo del Toro as one of the scriptwriters, no less. It starts off with potential, featuring a leading role from Guy Pearce (always a favourite) and some great set design and dressing in the form of a huge, crumbling old mansion complete with hidden rooms and passageways.

And slowly, bit by bit, the potential ebbs away, leaving this a soulless and artificial experience. It ends up being overexposed and under-written, a jumble of pointless scare sequences and endless CGI nonsense as the inhabitants of the household are repeatedly put at the mercy of some unwelcome critters. In some ways it's like a modern day GREMLINS, and it has a very childish feel to it despite the adult rating. There are parallels to other del Toro fare like PAN'S LABYRINTH but this is nowhere near that kind of calibre. The only thing it makes me want to do is track down the original.

The film I most likened it to was, in fact, an obscure early '90s B-movie called LITTLE DEVILS: THE BIRTH, which was much better in terms of pure, unashamed fun - the effects were better too. DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK is just lazy, with cheesy CGI and only one good scare all the way through. Finally, the cast is underwhelming: Pearce is a sleepwalker, Katie Holmes embarrassed, and Bailee Madison once of the most irritating child actors I've seen in a while. Still, at least Pearce got to team up with NEIGHBOURS' Alan Dale (aka Jim Robinson) for a couple of scenes...

Pros: beautiful scenery/sets, a few good jumps, and about 5-10 minutes of eerie atmosphere

Cons: not very scary, too much CGI'd gremlins, and a very predictable/slow plot

Conclusion: rent the original and skip this remake

The much anticipated, by me, remake of the 1973 made for TV movie of the same name left me feeling extremely disappointed. The plot was fairly simple. A young girl Sally (Bailee Madison) moves in with her father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes), into a house Alex and Kim are fixing up to sell. Soon upon arriving, adventurous Sally discovers the house has a basement and that the family is not alone. The basement's fireplace is inhabited by little CGI'd creatures that terrorize the family, especially Sally. The actors I felt all did an adequate job playing their parts, especially young Sally (Bailee Madison), who played a convincingly cynical little girl fed up with being 'sold' by her mother to live with her father. Overall the movie was very predictable and offered very few scary moments. The creatures from the original, people dressed in little goblin costumes, were sparingly showed. I think it was way more effective than the over-shown little gremlins in this movie, which looked to me like Chihuahuas that could speak. Save your money and skip this one!

Theres alot of people who dont seem to understand how a scale of 1 to 10 works on imbd. I get if you didnt like it, i get if u didnt think it was scary, but if you give this a 1 then either you havnt seen very many movies or you dont know how bad some movies actually are. There were deffinatly problems with this one. The characters were pretty unlikable in fact i cant think of 1 character i cared about and yes the cgi faries were shown a bit much and wernt really that great but how many cgi horror movies actually worked great? They did have a creepy feel to them especially their voices beconing sally to come and play in the dark. The atmosphere was good the house was beautiful and was used very well the cinamatography was good the actors, while unlikable, were fine for the most part. The sound effects were all fine for this movie. All in all its probably not gona be on anyones top 10 but its worth a watch

I do not know where all of these other cynical, angry reviews are coming from. Sure they showed the 'goblins' in abundance, but this isn't your typical jump-scare movie; which is fine by me. This was more of a fantasy-horror film where you are supposed to be as much enthralled by the creatures as you are 'afraid' of them.

I thoroughly enjoyed how the creatures looked, moved, and acted. It reminded me of a more modern-made version of the little imps from the movie "The Gate." Instead of dreading them and being on the edge of my seat, I was waiting to see them and their antics again. Perhaps that's why the other reviewers are angry. Perhaps this film has been mis-marketed.

If you like creepy little bipedal monsters that look like imps/goblins, then this movie is for you. If you like fantasy monsters and played Dungeons and Dragons as a kid then you will enjoy this film. If you enjoy medieval European folklore and cryptozoology then you will be as entertained as I was.