I kept wishing del Toro and Robbins had done something fresher or smarter with the material.
For this entry into the Halloween Fifteen, I took a look at 2011’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark—the remake of the 1973 made-for-TV horror film. Directed by Troy Nixey, co-written and produced by Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins, and based on Nigel McKeand’s teleplay, this one stars Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce, and Bailee Madison.
I’ll admit up front that I grabbed the Blu-ray mainly because of del Toro’s name on the cover. I didn’t even realize it was a remake until after I’d watched it. Once I learned that, and then read that the original is considered the superior version, that unfortunately started to make sense.
The movie kicks off with a surprisingly great opening scene. It’s dark, gritty, and creepy in all the right ways. It sets up the promise of a truly unnerving haunted-house experience. Sadly, that promise fades fast once we jump to the present day.
We meet Alex (Guy Pearce), who’s renovating a huge old mansion in hopes of flipping it, his girlfriend, Kim (Katie Holmes), and his daughter, Sally (Bailee Madison), who’s come to stay after some emotional struggles. While exploring the property, Sally discovers a sealed-off basement and unwittingly unleashes a group of tiny creatures that seem to want to “play.” Of course, what they really want is far more sinister.
On the technical side, the film looks incredible. The production design and cinematography are top-notch, and the house itself is beautifully realized. The lighting, atmosphere, and sound design all lend themselves to what should have been a deeply eerie movie. But that’s where the positives stop.
The film quickly shows too much too soon, killing any mystery or tension. Once you see the creatures, all sense of dread evaporates. They’re just not scary. The pacing drags painfully, making its 99-minute runtime feel closer to two and a half hours. And the characters, unfortunately, act like total idiots most of the time. Sally is the only one with any sense, and even she makes baffling choices. I’ve seen some reviewers defend that as “classic haunted house logic,” where characters make bad decisions to move the plot forward, but at this point that trope feels tired. I kept wishing del Toro and Robbins had done something fresher or smarter with the material.
There’s a difference between a slow-burn horror film and a slow, boring film and this one lands squarely in the latter category. I’ve seen plenty of slow-burn movies in this year’s Halloween Fifteen (Oddity being a great example) that still managed to get under my skin. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark just never does.
What’s worse is that I really thought this would be one of the scariest picks of the lineup. A del Toro-produced haunted house movie titled Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark? That sounds like a sure thing. But it’s not. The tension fizzles, the scares fall flat, and the potential gets lost somewhere in the shadows of that beautifully shot mansion.
It’s rated R—originally intended to be PG-13—but even that doesn’t help. The scares never rise to a level that justify the rating. In the end, this one turned out to be the biggest disappointment of this year’s Halloween Fifteen. Not terrible, just bland and frustratingly wasted potential.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
