Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010)

Directed by: Troy Nixey | 99 minutes | horror, thriller | Actors: Guy Pearce, Katie Holmes, Bailee Madison, Alan Dale, Julia Blake, Jack Thompson, Emelia Burns, Nicholas Bell, Dylan Young, Edwina Ritchard, Garry McDonald, James Mackay, Gabriela Iturrizaga, Lisa N Edwards, Ande Orbach

Divorced Alex Hirst (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) renovate historic buildings together. Their latest project takes them to Blackwood Manor, a mansion that the moviegoer can already see that they are not going to be happy. And guess what: they won’t be happy. The trouble begins when Alex’s daughter Sally (Bailee Madison) follows a whisper that leads her to a hidden room under the house. While Alex and Kim gloat over this unexpected architectural find, Sally discovers that the dark caverns of the house are inhabited by strange creatures who are becoming increasingly aggressive. There is only one thing that keeps them at bay: light.

‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ opens as a nostalgic thriller with torture porn traits. We see how the original owner of Blackwood Manor removes her front teeth with a chisel from a maid. A peace offering for the creatures who kidnapped his son, it turns out. This seems like the start of a nice sick fairy tale about a possessed house, but soon the scenario chooses a chewed-up fact: a child knows that something is not right, adults ignore the warnings and blame the stories on an overzealous fantasy . Until things really get out of hand, of course. So ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ is not original, but it is skillfully made, atmospheric and at times exciting. Yet you continue to feel that there could have been more in it.

For starters, the Hirst family is not sympathetic. Alex only thinks about his career, Kim is a struggling stepparent and Sally sulks like only children can. That is not surprising, by the way, because Sally has been parked with her father for vague reasons by her biological mother. The characters in the film often do strange things because the plot demands this of them. Why else would you have an unstable child join an important business dinner? Or let your daughter live in a house where she goes crazy instead of temporarily placing her elsewhere? You could say that people who make such decisions don’t deserve better. It is thanks to the young Bailee Madison that at some point you start to sympathize with the family. Madison may not be the most endearing child star ever, but she knows how to deal with the intense emotions that the screenplay asks of her. Holmes is also doing well; Pearce we’ve seen better.

And then the creatures. They would have been considerably scarier if they hadn’t had such a strange whispering voice, and had been portrayed a little more sparsely. In the beginning they provide a few effective scares with their short, underexposed performances, but as soon as the Gremlin-like festivities flood the house, the tension is over. Final verdict: ‘Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark’ is certainly not bad, but the rock-solid opening scene creates expectations that are not fulfilled by the rest of the film.