Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark
Even if it acts only as a producer, the unique style of Guillermo del Toro is clearly recognizable on “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”, an effective thriller that seduces with its gothic aesthetics and gloomy atmosphere.
It was already the subject of a TV movie in 1973. A little girl (Bailee Madison) goes to live with her father (Guy Pearce) and her new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) who lives in a huge mansion lost in the woods. Discovering a barricaded room, the girl who is already psychologically unstable releases of small animals who come the haunt when unfolds, light and darkness will take the place.
“Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” is not, strictly speaking, a horror film. If all means are used to startle, rather it is a feature-flavored nostalgia. The kind of production that wallows happily in the past using techniques that have proven themselves (the old fear of the dark, for example, and this habit of showing as little as possible). Movie lovers will feel immediately familiar ground and he will appeal almost instantly to go this reminiscence that had so frightened at the age of 10 years. It refers to “The Shinning” in particular, and the entire horror opus which is often intrinsic and psychological.
Impossible not to draw parallels with previous works of Guillermo del Toro, including “Pan’s Labyrinth”, “The Devil’s Backbone” and “Cronos”. The heroine is a child, her moodiness constantly feeds the doubts of the audience (she is mad or not?) and the mixture of fantasy and realism is superimposed to form one. The dark atmosphere that immerses this real haunted house in Tartarus respect the filmmaker’s obsessions that offered in the past two episodes of “Hellboy”. Behind the camera, there is Troy Nixey who used his job as a cartoonist to good effect, providing a setting for both fluid and complex. The melodies of Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders admittedly blood, enclosing all by pulling his lot of chills.
However, this is not just a nice exercise in style a bit empty. It explores the behavior problems in children of divorced parents. Although the moral of the end is meant rather conservative, the narrative briskly conducted is not without humor and irony. The correct interpretation and touching Bailee Madison requires Katie Holmes to excel, it has only rarely in her film career. Equal to itself, Guy Pearce ensures constantly raising his game, even if the character does not necessarily request.
Predictable, yet exciting, too little scary, but still very well done and played, “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” is a project who knows a bit old-fashioned fun and take in the breath all at once. To rank not far from “The Orphanage”, another test where the producer Guillermo del Toro had left his leg all his own.
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