David O'ConnellDon't Be Afraid of the Dark
November 2nd 2011 03:00
A film stranded in an elongated post-production hell and with a continually delayed release date is usually one in deep trouble. These are sure-fire danger signs of ‘creative differences’ threatening to sink the project – or else it’s a plain dud, the proverbial mutton being dressed up as lamb. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2011) has endured such a process of anticipation and delay. And yet, with Guillermo Del Toro’s name attached as co-writer, the film’s prospects initially seemed bright. The final product however, is a serious disappointment – a silly, derivative tale told from an imperilled child’s perspective; there are echoes of Del Toro’s own masterpiece, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006), but without any of that film’s narrative richness or allegorical power.
Alex (Guy Pearce) has recently taken custody of his young daughter Sally (Bailee Madison) now that the girl’s mother has effectively abandoned her. Alex has a new girlfriend, Kim (Katie Holmes), who Sally naturally resents for being a poor maternal substitute. Making matters worse, Sally is being forced to reside in her father’s creepy old mansion in Rhode Island, a recently acquired and remodelled building that is to now be her home.
In the mansion’s basement a locked-up furnace conceals the opening to another world inhabited by tiny cavorting fairies with sinister intentions. In the film’s prologue we see them luring the mansion’s past owner (Garry McDonald) to a gruesome end, and now with new inhabitants to feast upon, they’re resurfacing in search of fresh blood.
Sally is seduced by their persistent whisperings at first. Whilst keeping their presence to herself, she likes them for the novel distraction and strange playmates they are - that is, until the demonic creatures reveal their true motivations and begin to wreak havoc. Sally is their primary target and naturally a few close calls go unbelieved by Alex who thinks the stress of separation from her mother is inflaming the girl’s wild imagination.
Pearce and Holmes make a decent fist of bringing plausibility to Troy Nixey’s debut feature but Del Toro and Matthew Robbins' screenplay is simplistic, obvious, and overtly silly in ways that ultimately doom it. Logic is continually flayed for the sake of setting up the next scene; a good example comes after an attack is aborted which sees one of the creatures squashed by Sally in retreat. Yet, instead of showing it to her furious father as verification of the source of terror pursuing her, the creature is simply is ignored and they continue to think she’s delusional.
Thankfully the creepy and surprisingly tonal, orchestral score by Marco Beltrami and Buck Sauders saturates the film at the appropriate level; it’s perhaps Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’s finest attribute, though the design of the mansion provides an aptly cavernous impression of open spaces compromised by the untrustworthy dark recesses on their periphery.
The film is not without mild entertainment value but this is a rare failure from Del Toro. Perhaps he was too beholden to his love of John Newland’s 1973 original; the sense of a child being placed in jeopardy gives it a dark fairytale feel, and yet the bloodlust of true horror aficionados will not be sated by the fairly conservative approach Del Toro ultimately takes in updating what was a very modest story to begin with. The inane whisperings of the creatures and the ending are major sticking points too.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday, November 3.
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