Don't Be Afraid of the Dark Fails at fundamental story telling.
Here, I'll tell you the story.
In the year 1910, a man named Mr.Blackwood lures his maid down into the basement, where he accosts her and knocks out her teeth with a chisel, killing her. He offers her teeth (and his own) to a hoard of mysterious creatures living in his furnace, in hopes that the offering will make them give him his son back. The creatures are unsatisfied as the teeth did not come from children. So they pull Blackwood into the furnace and down into their cavernous world, killing him.
Cut to present day.
A little girl named Sally is forced to move in with her father, Alex, and his new girlfriend Kim. They are in the process of renovating Blackwoods old mansion, unaware of the danger lurking beneath. Kim tries her best to bond with Sally and make her feel at home, but to no avail. While Sally is exploring the back garden of the house, she discovers a basement, but is quickly scolded for being in the back garden, by Mr. Harris, the mansion's caretaker, because it's "dangerous, especially for children". Alex knocks down a wall and finds a door leading to the newly discovered basement. Mr. Harris is reluctant about being down there, but is ignored by Alex and Kim. Sally then hears voices coming form the bolted up old furnace. Later on, Sally uses some of the construction workers tools to open up the furnace, as the voices promise her friendship and understanding. She is interrupted half way, by Alex who she tells about the voices, but Alex just thinks that she's imagining things. As Sally leaves the basement, the creatures pry the last bolt on the furnace loose and escape. Over the following days, the creatures attempt to commune with Sally, but she becomes increasingly more afraid of them as they begin to frame her for misdeeds like ripping up Kim's clothes and stealing from Alex. Sally also discovers that the creatures are sensitive to light. One day, she goes down to the basement and attempts to talk to the creatures, offering them raisins. Mr. Harris arrives and yells at her to leave the basement, he tries to close the furnace but is attacked by the creatures who lacerate him with tools and box cutters as punishment for attempting to warn the family. Mr. Harris is rushed to hospital, but Alex assumes that it was just an accident. Kim starts to believe Sally that something more sinister is afoot, but is unable to convince Alex. Kim goes to the library to research the history of Blackwood's house. Blackwood was apparently a talented painter and artists who drew things from nature, but toward the end of his life (before his mysterious disappearance) he began to draw strange, gothic things, some of which match Sally's own artwork of the creatures. These creatures apparently eat the bones and teeth of children to replenish their ranks each time they emerge. Kim also speaks with Mr. Harris on the hospital, who says that he used to live in the house as a child, and that his own grandfather had blocked up the creature's passageway long ago. Sally is attacked by the creatures in the bathtub, but is rescued. Kim warns Alex of the danger, but he ignores her pleas to get Sally out of the house, still refusing to believe in the creatures. He then holds a dinner party to impress his boss with the completion of the house, during which, Sally is attacked by the creatures once more in the library, but this time manages to get a Polaroid picture of them as proof to her father. Alex ends the party, and makes plans with Kim to leave with Sally. That night, the creatures make their final assault, cutting power to the house and separating Alex from Kim and Sally. Slowly, Sally is dragged to the basement by the creatures, but Kim cuts the rope they are dragging her with, at the cost of her own life. The creatures pull Kim into their caverns, as Alex arrives too late to help her. In the films epilogue, Sally and Alex return to the once more empty house, and leave a drawing Sally did as a tribute to Kim. In the basement, the creatures voices can be heard through the once again sealed furnace. It is apparent that Kim has become one of them, and now leads them in waiting for new victims.
Now that we've gotten that out of the way, I'll go on to explain why this film was such a disappointment. Y'see, I don't usually go to horror movies, it's not my thing, I'll see a Freddy or Jason movie when it comes out, but those don't really scare me. So when a horror movie comes out that I actually want to be scared by, I expect the best. With a title like Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark I thought I was going to be sleeping with the light on for a week, especially when it's being directed by Guillermo Del Toro, who's a master at making scary and interesting looking creatures. I'll dissect this film into sections for you.
We'll start with...
The Setting and Imagery.
This film is set in one of the scariest places I can imagine, a big, old, Victorian era house. Complete with a library, a spooky basement, and a moss covered backyard. It's a location that can rival The Shining . However, much of this haunting imagery is never exploited. Throughout the film, there is shown to be a nature motif to the house, decorative deer antlers and old trees in the garden. I thought maybe that there would be a significance to them, maybe they would help defeat the creatures, or maybe the creatures would at one point, at least attack someone in the garden. This is not the case however, as most of the attacks and scary scenes happen in one of two places, the child's bedroom, and the basement. Now while these two locations are pretty damn scary, I was hoping for more. Del Toro has a real eye for fantasy imagery, and it really shows, but there is one location that we unfortunately never get to see. The caverns where the creatures live. I was really hoping to see what it looked like down there, was it a network of caves and tunnels? or was it like a hellish sub-world, unreachable by traditional means which is why no one ever dug it up by mistake? and exactly how far down did it go? Anyway, I guess keeping it mysterious wouldn't have been so bad if the rest of the film had been better.
Now, onto The Characters, and why they were wrong. Every character in this movie is based off a classical archetype from a horror movie setting, but there's something wrong with them, they either behave the wrong way, or don't get used in the story enough until it's too late.
I'll start with Sally, who for all intents and purposes is the main character. In a film where the antagonists' soul goal is to capture and eat children, you'd better hope that the audience likes the children more than the monsters. Typically, when a child is feeling homesick or out of place, they should have a personality that the audience likes, so that we sympathize with their plight. Unfortunately, this isn't the way it goes. In a fantasy setting, the children should have a sense of wonder about them, they should be friendly, sweet, and imaginative... but Sally isn't any of those things. Instead she's one of those new-age, self aware, high strung brats, who was brought up by an overbearing mother. While her father and step mom bend over backwards to make her feel at home, despite being very busy renovating the house, Sally just pushes them away and continues to mope. What they should have done is make her friendly and personable, but have the adults be too busy to really pay attention to her, so when the creatures offer her friendship, it makes sense for her to want to free them. Sally didn't seem like the type of kid who would be dumb enough to let spooky whispering creatures out of the creepy basement, but I guess the writers don't agree with me.
Now let's talk about Alex, the father. This guy is the biggest idiot in the entire movie, for way longer than he should be. It's normal for his type of character to be skeptical about what's going on, but after a certain point they should wise up! The first couple of times Sally is attacked by the creatures, Alex just chocks it up to over imagination and cries for attention, which is understandable, but later on as the attacks become much more violent, consisting of one man almost being stabbed to death, and Sally having to be rescued by the house maid from the bathroom, he still seems oblivious! It's especially annoying during the film's climax, at the moment where he should have become the Super Dad, that kills a bunch of the creatures and makes up for being an idiot earlier, he still manages to do nothing except get trapped in the kitchen and let his girlfriend die. If I found out that my child was being hunted by tooth eating shadow goblins, I would be watching her like a hawk over it's nest, and apologizing profusely for not believing sooner. Now, Kim the step mom, is actually the least hate-able character. She tries to be nice to Sally, and protects her throughout the film because she remembers having a difficult childhood herself. Her bonding with Sally is done pretty well, and I did feel a slight bit of sadness at her death in the end, but it still bothers me that she spends more time with the child than the actual parent does.
One more character that I want to talk about, is Mr. Harris. Mr. Harris fills the role of one of the most well known horror movie archetypes, that I like to call "The Old Man Who Knows". This character is pretty easy to spot, first off, he'll be old, and he'll usually be a man. He knows the history of the house or other area where the main characters are going off to, and he'll always be the first to tell them "Don't go down that rawd, it's dangerous!" or "That house is cursed", but he'll often be ignored and thought of as crazy. In the film, Mr. Harris is attacked by the creatures after he stops them from killing Sally. They are apparently punishing him for betraying them. I thought this was sort of a good twist, revealing that Harris was more involved with the creatures than we were lead to believe. It's a spin on the classic archetype, but after that scene, he is barley involved beyond telling Kim some vague information about the house. What would have been good is to reveal that for a number of years, Mr. Harris worked for the creatures, bringing them sacrifices, on their empty promise that a loved one would be returned (maybe a daughter, which would give him a paternal connection to Sally) but when he realized he was being decived, he sealed up the furnace himself. Then at the end of the film, he returns to help the characters at the cost of his own life as a final act of redemption. Maybe he could have even taken Kim's place as the one to be dragged away. THAT would have been interesting and a lot more emotionally engaging.
Now last but not least, we'll talk about the creatures themselves. First off, I thought we learned from films like Jaws that less is more. They show way too much of the creatures way too early. The fear of the unknown is what drives a horror or suspense movie, so when you show the audience the monster right away, it ruins that crucial element and we no longer feel afraid. M. Night Shyamalan, regardless of how you feel about him, is really good at this, he always keeps us in the dark about what the monster looks like, which keeps us interested. So anyway, it should be noted that these monsters are roughly the size of pet store rats, which may be scary if you're a 6 or 7 year old girl, but for a full grown adult, it's nothing a heavy shovel and a good pair of boots can't fix. Now while they still are pretty scary looking, and they do some really spooky stuff when trying to coax Sally into trusting them, their diminutive stature completely dissolves them as a believable threat for anyone above 4 feet. They would've been more intimidating if they were at least the size of Gremlins, but then I guess we would run the risk of people accusing this film of ripping off Gremlins (even though this is a remake of a TV movie which predates Gremlins by 11 years). So, anyway, these creatures apparently feast on the bones and teeth of children, and must take a victim back with them to their underworld to replenish their ranks each time the emerge. It's never explained how this works, which annoys me, because something like that seems worth knowing. Also, why is it so important that the creatures replenish their ranks, since it seems like they can live for a very long time without food?. I mean the last time they could have possibly been out of their cavers was on the 1920's or so. One more thing, if you'll notice, the alpha of the creatures appears to be a transformed Mr. Blacwood (I guess he's the alpha because he's bigger, since the rest of them are probably children) so that means these things can live for hundreds of years. Like I said, it wouldn't be so bad keeping it a mystery if the rest of the film had been good.
Now I will scrutinize over other things. As I said, this film failed at fundamental story telling, but I don't mean that the story itself is bad. On the whole, this film has a pretty standard plot, nothing really original about it, but even the most basic stories when told well can seem new to us (are you paying attention, James Cameron?... I bet not) but that's not what I'm talking about. The fact is, this film just has so many plot holes and lapses in logic that it makes things really frustrating for a smart movie goer.
#1) The Bathroom Scene
Sally is taking a bath, and the creatures manage to switch off the lights from the vent using a bent piece of wire. The slowly approach her but she panics and makes her way to the door, but they cut her off and force her back, she jumps back into the tub and closes the shower curtains, which for some reason the monsters have an extremely hard time getting through. Soon enough, the house maid and a group of construction workers hear her screams and come to pry open the locked door to rescue her. The creatures slip away unnoticed (which is something they have a talent for) leaving the maid to see Sally cowering in the bathtub beneath a ripped up shower curtain. This scene doesn't make sense for two reasons. First, this maid character has been in the film almost the whole time, she was there to witness Mr. Harris stagger out of the basement all bloody and seems to be the only other person paying any mind to Sally besides Kim. Now she finds the child panic stricken and obviously having been attacked, but still doesn't bother to investigate the situation, and neither do any of the construction workers who come to help. The second reason this scene makes no sense is that the creatures chose a pretty inopportune time to make their move. Remember, their goal is not just to kill her, but to make her into one of them so that they may replenish their ranks. Taking her from the bathroom would mean that they would have to drag her downstairs, through the main hall of the house, and into the basement, all without being seen by the maid or anyone else (during the day time). Unless their plan was to sneak her through the vents, but I doubt she would be able to fit. If you ask me, this scene should have involved Kim instead, it would have made more sense if the creatures were trying to kill her to get her out of the way, and it would have been a good excuse to show Katie Holmes in the shower.
#2) The Party Scene
Kim gives Sally a Polaroid camera to take pictures of the guests (we'll just ignore that it would be virtually impossible to get film for such a camera in 2011) . At one point, she actually manages to get a photo of one of the creatures hiding in a potted plant, and brings it to the dinner table to watch it develop. As Alex is making a speech, a few of the party guests try to get a look at Sally's picture, but she doesn't let them! Now, the entire film, she's been trying to convince people that these creatures are real, but now that she has physical proof, for some reason she wants to keep it a secret. You could maybe argue that she only wanted to show her father, thinking that anyone else would just assume the creature was some sort of rodent and thus become disenchanted with the house, but honestly I don't think the girl is that concerned with making sure her dad's boss is impressed. Anythewho, eventually the creatures get the picture from Sally, rip it up, and scurry off. Sally follows them out of the dining room and into the library where they, unsurprisingly, have set a trap. She frantically snaps pictures at them as they knock books off the high shelves (once again the creatures choose a very inopportune time to make their move) . Alex and the party guests come to her aid, and Sally shows him a picture of one of the creatures. The guests just decide that the evening is over and take their leave, they never ask any questions or wonder how a six year old managed to reach the books on the high shelves to throw them. It would also be good to point out that Sally actually crushes one of the creatures in a sliding book case, severing it's arm. Why didn't she show that to anyone? What would have been better is to have the party goes off without a hitch, and toward the end of the evening, Sally is frightened by the idea of an empty house and begs guests not to leave, but they all just think that she's being sweet and leave anyway. This would make the impending attack more terrifying for the audience.
#3) The Climax
So finally Alex has wised up and he and Kim prepare to move to a motel with Sally, but instead of keeping her by their side the whole time, they put her to bed and say that they'll wake her up when they get there. I'm sure I don't even need to explain why this is stupid. Anyway, the creatures make their move by incapacitating Kim and locking Alex in the garage, attempting to kill him with carbon monoxide from his car. They rope Sally's feet and begin to drag her into the basement as Kim struggles to help. Meanwhile, Alex escapes the garage, but then gets locked in the kitchen, so he bashes his way out with a meat tenderizing hammer, which seems like the perfect weapon to use against demon gerbils. Once free, he drops the hammer and rushes to the basement just in time to see Kim get dragged to her doom. Okay, so Kim and Sally pretty much did what I expected them to do, but I'm not about to let Alex off the hook. What the writers should have done, is have Alex go into a protective rage, stomping and crushing the creatures in attempt to get to his loved ones as the creatures scurry away in panic. This probably would have made the audience actually like him, because it would show that he really did try his best, but instead only one of the little buggers is killed... by Sally, who crushes it to death with her camera.
Foot Notes:
1. If the creatures wanted Sally so bad, why did they go to such elaborate means to obtain her? They could have easily just sneaked into the parents room in the middle of the night, slit both their throats, and then taken Sally with little hassle.
2. Why was there no police investigation? After Mr. Harris is attacked (or as Alex believes, injured by mistake) why didn't any one of the workers or the maid think to tell the cops that something weird was going on? And surely the doctors at the hospital would have been able to tell that Mr. Harris' wounds were not accidental. Then after Kim is taken below, how did Alex explain that away? The police aren't usually satisfied by a simple answer like "She disappeared".
3. When Alex and Sally return to the house to pay tribute to Kim, it's apparent that the place has gone back up for sale... instead of having been condemned (or burnt to the ground). What's to stop the next owner from unsealing the furnace again? Also why didn't Alex take more precautions to ensure the creatures don't come back? He should have hired an exterminator to pump poisonous gas into the furnace non stop for six weeks! Or hired contractors to fill the hole with cement, since it seems to be their only way up. For that matter, these things are mentioned to be thousands of years old and seen all over the world, does this mean there are more?.
4. Why are these creatures so picky about what they eat? It's explained in the film that these things once ran amok in the dark ages, snatching up children left and right for their (apparently delicious) teeth. Then at some point, a bargain was struck that people would leave child's teeth under their pillows for the creatures in exchange for pieces of silver (hmm.. that sounds familiar). Now though, the creatures don't have that luxury, but still insist on going after children in particular, when it seems like adult victims work just fine (both Blackwood and Kim are taken and transformed). If I were them, I would start going after big adults instead so that I could produce bigger monsters and therefor be more threatening.
5. WHY DON'T YOU IDIOTS JUST STEP ON THEM! They're like less than a foot tall and can easily be warded off with a flashlight! Grab a shovel or a croquet mallet and go to town on these things! Kick 'em if you have to!
6. So yeah, through dialogue, it's implied that these creatures are the mythological basis for Tooth Fairies. Which would be sort of cool, except Guillermo Del Toro already showed us much cooler looking tooth fairies in Hellboy 2. These tooth fairies actually scared me, acting like a swarm of locusts, despite being easily killed by Hellboy. They should have just sent Hellboy into Blackwood's house to kill the creatures, that would have been cool. I guess what I'm saying is I'd like Guillermo Del Toro to go ahead and make Hellboy 3.
The End. I hope you enjoyed my analysis of this film, and that it convinced you not to waste your money like my friend and I did.
