I heard many bad reviews of this movie, but I went in with the open mind of one who loves creepy short Gothic stories and old haunted mansions. The movie was unique, atmospheric, and emotionally effective. I used to love sitting and reading old Alfred Hitchcock tomes at the public library when I was little, and listening to old scary radio shows on my AM transistor, a little black boxy thing I clung to late at night... this movie really captures that feeling as I remember it.
I remember the original, it's a classic, what I remember the most is how in the end when they play that really scary music as they show the black cat sitting beneath the porch... I always thought that was really funny.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a Gothic fairy tale that takes place in a beautiful old mansion, in Providence, RI, home of the inimitable author H.P. Lovecraft and The Eagles's song The Last Resort, where a horde of evil faeries live deep beneath and Sally sets them free when the family finds the old barricaded basement and workshop of the grounds keeper's grandfather, an artist who lived in the home for many years, and who drew unpublished works warning of the creatures who once took his son from him.
Will Sally become their next victim as they come up to feed only once every hundred years?
Everything visual is quite visceral, from the rosewood trees, the Koi pond, the front door to the windows, all the aesthetics are beautifully captured in light and shadow. The directing is exceptional, the music while fitting is rather stock and forgettable.
In the end Sally's parents must save her from becoming the next victim to the evil she unwittingly unleashed upon them.
I know a lot of people don't like Katie Holmes but I thought she did a good job here as Kim, the caring and uncertain mothe figure to Sally and girlfriend to her father Alex, so that in the end her sacrifice is felt not just by Sally and her father, but by the audience as well.
Even though Sally is not the daughter of Kim in the movie, the actress who played her Bailee Madison, looks a lot like Katie Holmes.
The runes scratched into the top of the basement furnace reads: BE AFRAID.
I remember the original, it's a classic, what I remember the most is how in the end when they play that really scary music as they show the black cat sitting beneath the porch... I always thought that was really funny.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a Gothic fairy tale that takes place in a beautiful old mansion, in Providence, RI, home of the inimitable author H.P. Lovecraft and The Eagles's song The Last Resort, where a horde of evil faeries live deep beneath and Sally sets them free when the family finds the old barricaded basement and workshop of the grounds keeper's grandfather, an artist who lived in the home for many years, and who drew unpublished works warning of the creatures who once took his son from him.
Will Sally become their next victim as they come up to feed only once every hundred years?
Everything visual is quite visceral, from the rosewood trees, the Koi pond, the front door to the windows, all the aesthetics are beautifully captured in light and shadow. The directing is exceptional, the music while fitting is rather stock and forgettable.
In the end Sally's parents must save her from becoming the next victim to the evil she unwittingly unleashed upon them.
I know a lot of people don't like Katie Holmes but I thought she did a good job here as Kim, the caring and uncertain mothe figure to Sally and girlfriend to her father Alex, so that in the end her sacrifice is felt not just by Sally and her father, but by the audience as well.
Even though Sally is not the daughter of Kim in the movie, the actress who played her Bailee Madison, looks a lot like Katie Holmes.
The runes scratched into the top of the basement furnace reads: BE AFRAID.