Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

What a letdown. Come on, Guillermo! You’re better than this. I had a slight desire to see this one back in the fall when it was in theaters, however, the lukewarm reviews couldn’t motivate me to leave my couch and venture out of the apartment. I’m glad for that. As you can probably already guess, I wasn’t a big fan of this film. Before I get ahead of myself, let me just bring everyone up to speed on Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark – not to be confused with Nickelodeon show that encourages just the opposite.

Premise time. A family moves into an old mansion (hoping to flip it and make a quick profit) when the young daughter of the family finds a secret room with a sealed grate that she removes and accidentally releases these little creatures into the house to cause havoc and whatnot. Oh, and apparently these creatures can’t be in the light. “Does it burn them like vampires, or turn them into stone?” you ask. No. They just hiss and scamper off into the dark whenever a flash of light hits their face.

Terrifying little buggers, no?

So, I’m already leading into what is probably my biggest gripe with this film: the monsters. The movie gives very little back-story on these guys other than they live deep in the ground (the house was somehow built right over a giant fissure in Earth that they live in or some shit), feed on bone, and whenever they come up to the surface they need to bring a human back down with them. Who knows why? I don’t make these rules. These critters actually serve as the source material to the tooth fairy folklore as the movie opens to the apparent author of the myth trying to bring back his son from creatures before being pulled into their lair as well – it’s the first two minutes of the movie; I haven’t ruined anything for you. But enough with their back-story. I’ll suspend my disbelief and just try to have fun with it. Initially, the creatures first whisper to the little girl to get her to do things. “Join us.” “Be our friend.” “Turn out the lights.” Creepy shit like that. It’s effective in setting the tone. Then we get to the point where we have to see these things in action. Understand why they’re really so dangerous and need to be feared. This is where I lose all respect for this film.

I tried looking for an accurate photo that truly represents the monsters’ stature, but failed to find one. Instead, here’s my best analogy. Take an ugly-ass hamster and give it opposable thumps and the ability to walk on two legs. Yes, they’re only about 10 inches tall. Now, while they do travel in packs of a dozen or so, I still fail to buy that they could kill/capture a full-grown human. More importantly, they’re just not scary. The film tries to freak you out a bit as these guys create mischief cutting the power, locking you in your room while stealing the key… I still don’t buy it. Get a big-ass boot on your foot and squash those little fuckers – a child could punt on of those things further than a Nerf football! For such small, pathetic creature, it’s outrageous what these guys get away with. They attack the groundskeeper (a burly, behemoth of a man) and bring him within an inch of his life, stabbing him spare scissors and screwdrivers, and he can’t even take one down with him. Yet when the little girl is attacked by a mob of them, she squashes one in between a sliding bookcase. Go figure? Very little suspense with – what I consider to be – no threat placed on the characters.

I will say this one positive critique (SPOILER), Katie Holmes gets killed at the end. Well, actually she just gets pulled into their lair (she sacrifices herself for the girl – I won’t go on another rant on how one good tug on the rope that’s dragging her down could have pulled the entire Fraggle Rock cast to the surface – and somehow goes on to becomes the rodents’ leader. There’s an epilogue where the family returns to the abandoned home to leave colored drawing of her, then we hear whisper through vents after they leave telling the rest of the creatures to be patient. One day and new victim will release them. Why the Hell did she suddenly become evil. And what more… if you join their little clan after being pulled down, what happened to the first guy that got sucked down in the beginning.

Ah, the whole movie is garbage. Although I’ve never seen it, the original made-for-TV version has to be better. It just has to.