Disclaimer: Trouble City’s creator, Nick Nunziata served as an associate producer on the 2010 remake of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. This review was written with no commentary, oversight, or editorial contributions from Mr. Nunziata.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)
“It scared the hell out of me when I was a kid.” Some version of this sentence tops nearly every favorable review of the original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. It’s not hard to see why children would be terrified of this movie, from the spooky whispers of the weird little goblin-rat things to the way the movie makes the creatures things that live in the dark and are scared of the light, conceits common with most of the imaginary monsters that children are afraid of. Unfortunately with adulthood comes discernment and Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark does not hold up.
The story of a couple who inherit an old mansion and unseal an old chimney that leads to some cavernous basement below, unleashing some bizarre creatures that fixate on and try to kidnap the woman of the house, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark suffers most from the passage of time. The effects used to realize little creatures scuttling about were probably a lot more effective in the era before The Gate existed. But it can’t all be blamed on time or a TV budget because Kolchak the Night Stalker and Cast a Deadly Spell are still very effective films regardless of their age.
The movie makes attempts at telling a feminist parable about how women are dismissed and not believed as Kim Darby suffers the presence of these creatures who only make themselves known to her. It plays as every other character in the movie treating her like a small child rather than an adult woman but that’s a theme that’s been used in horror films, most notably Rosemary’s Baby, to much greater effect and those don’t have goofy costumes or wooden 70s TV-caliber acting. There are a few bits that work quiet well but the movie’s mostly trite and boring. If you’re not already nostalgic for this then it’s not worth your time.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (2010)
The remake of Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark takes a more fairy tale approach to its take on the material. There’s still the couple renovating the house (Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes) but our focus this time is on their child, Sally (Bailee Madison). Sally is the archetype of the troubled girl dealing with a broken home; her father isn’t as attentive to her needs as he should be, she’s in a new place, and she hates her new stepmother, Kim, on principal in spite of the fact that Kim is making every attempt to ease the transition along.
Kim snoops, as children do, and discovers a hidden basement in the Gothic mansion her father is renovating and within is an old furnace with a cavernous void inside and whispering voices come from within. The creatures befriend Sally at first, but she soon finds out their malevolent intent.
Is it a good remake?
Yes, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark takes the few parts of the original movie that works and reworks nearly everything else. Guillermo del Toro served as a writer and producer on the film and his design aesthetic plays into the film quite distinctly. Everything’s a little more ornate and big than it would be in real life and it adds to the mythic quality of the movie.
The monsters resemble their 70s counterparts with a little bit of the mini-demons from The Gate thrown in and the CG used to realize them is quite good. There’s some really good scares with the creatures early on, but once we see one the movie just sort of stops trying to use them to scare us and maybe uses them a little bit too much. I will say that the newly added detail that they eat children’s teeth is both suitably upsetting and adds to the fairy tale feel of the movie.
Does it stand on its own?
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a great movie for kids, that’s not to say that it’s not a good movie that can be evaluated by an adult, but the simple plot and focus on Sally would appeal to a child just getting in to horror. Unfortunately, the movie is rater R, rather unfairly I would say as there is a fair amount of blood but not much actual gore, it has a couple of moments that are a bit hardcore for a small child but they’re more implied than actually shown and being traumatized is part of the experience of watching horror movies as a kid.
Guillermo Del Toro’s involvement is a bit of a double-edged sword. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is basically a spooky bedtime story, and it excels at that, but Del Toro has so fleshed out the backstory and the world that you can feel the bigger story at the edges of the screen. I’m realistic about the budget and the fact that this movie managed to be as polished as it is and managed to land such a solid cast and a theatrical release date but the story on the fringes of this story makes the movie seem very limited and small compared to its potential.
It’s a well-made and effective little movie but I have to put the emphasis on little here. It’s not what I would call forgettable but it also feels like it falls well short of its potential.
Watch, Toss, or Buy?
It’s not a must-own and it’s not going to be everyone’s thing, but I’d say it’s a definite watch.