Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

I admit, it is a problem having a video night and watching one poor movie after another .. you almost expect the worst. However, this movie is bad. It is not at all suspenseful, it has quite terrible acting (which is a surprise considering the actors are by no means B-actors), bad, bad CGI .. and most prominently .. a really bad story! At its core, it is a redemption patchwork family movie .. with creatures. Sadly though, the family drama never exceeds "tele-novela" drama quality .. and the creatures themselves are about as scary as muppets. At no point the threat of those creatures feels serious in any way. They only thing they do benefit from is the clumsiness of the protagonists (the usual problem of protagonists being unable to run a straight line without falling to the ground, or fumble a key ... or make it from a room normal sized living room in less than 5 minutes. Stay away from this movie, it is terrible .. and sadly not "so bad, its good"...

This movie is a complete waste of time. Everything is going slow as hell, there isn't really a story or a plot, just mutant mice that eat baby teeth.. Every scene of the movie you just keep asking yourself, why don't they just drop a torch down the fireplace, or just smack that mice with their foot, and why the hell don't you turn the light on! Do not watch the movie, unless you like people saying "told you so".

I am in no way a professional movie critic. And this is the first time I even bother to write a review on IMDb but after the opening scene I was already regretting being in the theater watching this piece of crap. For starters, the storytelling is horrible. The characters reasoning is taken out of a kindergarten play book. The film making is awful in a way that not even Martin Campbell could reach with Green Lantern. The only star I could give to this movie is for the young Bailee Madison, poor girl had to go though such a pile of insanity while all her potential was being flushed down the wicked "monsters". To sum up, in my humble opinion as a movie aficionado that could enjoy a cheap B-series movie, I would advice every single person with a little taste not to pay a dime for this film.

just awful... don't waste your time watching I cannot understand for which reason would somebody bother shooting this film in the first place. It is not scary it's just stupid. I am very disappointed that I was fooled by the medium cast (usually I enjoy movies with at least 2 actors I know) to watch this and I was disappointed the least. I could even say annoyed for spending my time to watch this. Who would actually force their child to stay alone in a house that someone was recently killed? The most ridiculous part is that they don't really get shaken by this and the father barely takes part in the whole story. Even if your child was only afraid even of something imaginary you would not leave it alone. Would you? OK I understand the need to let the child alone to make the plot but maybe more imaginative reasons could be found. Even for the most science fiction movies you gotta make it a little bit believable in order to make it scary!

Even though the beginning was really boring and simple, the rest of the movie was interesting. This movie should not have been classified as a horror movie, its more so on the lines of science fiction. Now the ending wasn't gory, and the very last words the creatures say isn't that scary. I would have made this movie higher, if there would have been more action. Most of the time, the people talk, and the creatures do nothing but walk around the house talking to the little girl. If you like science fiction movies like, Godzilla, then you should get some thrill at the really cool action parts. If they decide to make a sequel to this movie, I might buy it at red box if I'm bored one night, but besides that it had an average plot and a poor/average climax.

Not much of a "horror" movie except for a few good 'taken-by-surprise' moments. The plot is simple and I'd say this would make a good 'sleepover movie' for some 12 year old girls. The locations are beautiful what ever said and done. Love the house and the garden. Too much CGI and exposure of the creatures. They run about and expose themselves thus revealing a lot of themselves, making it look like one of those Disney's children's horror flicks, you know what I mean! Acting is actually good. It's just the poor plot, plot holes and way too much CGI is what ruins the movie. Could have done a better job but nonetheless, this would make a good children's horror movie.

Although Katie Holmes and Bailee Madison play their parts as daughter and step mom very well. Guy Pearce lacks the skill of a father. This could just be the Writers/Directors for making him this way. This movie lacks a back story unless I missed it with the flying words at the beginning, they are missing part of the story. While you sit there in your seat waiting for someone to know or find out what to do, you become disappointed with the actions they make. This movie is Rated R, that doesn't mean you will get to see something with the camera always jumping away from the action you will feel like you missed it, but you didn't, they just didn't show it. This is one of the movies that when you leave, you ask your self "What? How? and Why?"

I didn't expect too much of this movie, but I was hoping for an interesting scary story or at least something to go "ooh!" about. Unfortunately, I found this movie to be quite boring, not at all scary and with no twists to spice it up. It had a promising start, but it's all downhill from there.... And it truly is annoying to see yet another scary movie where the characters do stupid things when they know something bad is going on, like being alone etc. Also, there was a lot of things that clearly would have be handled differently in real life, like no investigation of a bad "incident" etc, that just made it stupid. I didn't care much for the end either. Too scary for kids, too boring for adults?

How to make a generic crappy horror film miniguide: age old haunting: check. stupid family moving into said house: check. ugly kid as the main plot device: check. spooky basement that 400 work crews missed: check. forced family drama: check. stupid parents rescue kid and live happily ever after: check. Acting: bad Cast: annoying Music: lame Environment: rain, dark, fall Lenght: way too long Waste of your time. 1/10 It was not scary, it was not intriguing, it was not interesting, it was not pleasant to watch. It was boring, annoying and downright insulting. Here is a tip folks. Kids ran their course in horror movies with poltergeist, and that came out a few decades ago. Stop trying to get a pg13 rating and make an actual horror movie for once.