In a small area in Providence, Rhode Island, a young girl named Sally has been sent by her mother to stay with her father and his new girlfriend in their newly restored home. Initially depressed, and thoroughly unsatisfied, Sally despises her new home, but things start to get interesting when she wanders and discovers a sealed fireplace in the skylight of the manor's basement. She begins to hear multiple voices coming from not just the fireplace, but from various areas of the manor, and they all seem to be calling for her...
I've never seen the original Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, but outside of some role reversals, I've heard this doesn't deviate too much from the original source material. I'm admittedly going to have to track that film down now, just to see exactly how much was changed, and to see if it has the same faults and/or strengths as this film had.
For strengths, praise should go to actress Bailee Madison, who plays our young hero Sally pretty well. Come to think of it, everyone else around her was pretty mediocre. Katie Holmes seemed to be miscast in the role as the kind girlfriend of her father, and Guy Pearce just sounded disinterested throughout the entire film. Admittedly, it is a little difficult at first to even care about Sally, who just appears to be grumpy and frumpy for the first third of the movie (though I can't say I blamed her given some circumstances). The creatures themselves are also pretty scary-looking for the most part, though I'm sure they would have left a more lasting impact had they not been CGI. There is a particularly good jump scare involving them invading Sally's room.
Speaking of the creatures, yes, they're designed rather well. Yes, they're scary. But writer/producer Guillermo Del Toro, who I do rather enjoy, has already worked with the old legend of the "Tooth Fairies" before with Hellboy 2. Again, I know this is a remake, but it felt like he was recycling ideas with the decision to include them as the primary monsters. The film also boasts a running time of ninety nine minutes, and you do feel like a decent amount may have been left on the cutting room floor or was edited out of the script. Exactly what, I can't quite explain as of this writing, but I can almost guarantee that you'll feel the same way.
Underneath its occasional lapse into honest-to-god good creepiness and the somewhat formulaic "ancient evil reawakened" plot that we've seen countless times before (which preceded even the original), this is in essence a haunted house movie mixed with a fairy tale. That actually might be why I can say I enjoyed it. If you have some younger kids who don't mind an occasional scene of violence (I'm shocked this received an "R" rating considering there isn't any swearing or nudity), this could be a nice scary movie to watch with them one night. If you're uncertain about it though, just stick with an 80s or early 90s classic instead, and save this for a later date.
Tomorrow, we're going for a double dose of creature features, with BLOOD SURF and SHARK NIGHT.
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