Pre-Halloween Horror-watching #3: Darkness Falls
Darkness Falls
Genre: Monster/Supernatural
Director: That guy who directed Battle Los Angeles and will be directing the Clash of the Titans sequel, 2003
Starring: Emma Caulfield, an Aussie kid who is supposed to be her brother, and some dude who was on the Shield for 3 years
TL;DR: There are 3 scenes with big genuine tension. Pity there are another 20 or so which are supposed to have tension.
So 100+ years ago, the village of Darkness Falls basically wrongly put a woman, the "tooth fairy", to death for a crime she did not commit. As she dies, she curses the town, yada, yada, comes back to haunt town, etc., if you ever see her, she comes after you, and she's hurt by light because her skin got burned off while she was alive so even the slightest suntan hurts. Sure. Fast forward a few years, and the main character, well, looks at her when she comes to take his tooth. She gets pissed, kills his mom, and then tries to kill him for 12 years. 'Cause she's sensitive. I dunno.
Added this one to the queue because Emma Caulfield was in it, and hey, I'm a Buffy fan. Unfortunately, she's the best actor in the whole film, and she is neither the main character nor even the secondary main character. That's not really the worst of it, though. Lots of horror films have bad acting in it. The big problem with Darkness Falls is that it may be the laziest horror film with a real budget that's ever been made.
Just take the name of the town, Darkness Falls. It could have been a play on the fact that so many horror films have towns with names like Provident, or Happy Harbor, or My Little Pony or some shit. But, no, they just play it straight. It's like Tolkien really named Sauron Darko, but forgot to add "the Dark God of the Dark" subtitle.
Everything about this film is lazy. The acting is ho-hum, the action feels borrowed, we see the monster everywhere in order to keep scenes "scary", and no one ever has a good idea, or even a spectacular bad idea, about how to fight her until the very end.
It's not like the basic "stay in the light" concept is bad. Human beings have kind of a natural problem with darkness. So how can you put obvious money into a film that still does nothing with it? Everything is so telegraphed and by-the-book, it's practically impossible to feel any tension whatsoever.
Genre: Monster/Supernatural
Director: That guy who directed Battle Los Angeles and will be directing the Clash of the Titans sequel, 2003
Starring: Emma Caulfield, an Aussie kid who is supposed to be her brother, and some dude who was on the Shield for 3 years
TL;DR: There are 3 scenes with big genuine tension. Pity there are another 20 or so which are supposed to have tension.
So 100+ years ago, the village of Darkness Falls basically wrongly put a woman, the "tooth fairy", to death for a crime she did not commit. As she dies, she curses the town, yada, yada, comes back to haunt town, etc., if you ever see her, she comes after you, and she's hurt by light because her skin got burned off while she was alive so even the slightest suntan hurts. Sure. Fast forward a few years, and the main character, well, looks at her when she comes to take his tooth. She gets pissed, kills his mom, and then tries to kill him for 12 years. 'Cause she's sensitive. I dunno.
Added this one to the queue because Emma Caulfield was in it, and hey, I'm a Buffy fan. Unfortunately, she's the best actor in the whole film, and she is neither the main character nor even the secondary main character. That's not really the worst of it, though. Lots of horror films have bad acting in it. The big problem with Darkness Falls is that it may be the laziest horror film with a real budget that's ever been made.
Just take the name of the town, Darkness Falls. It could have been a play on the fact that so many horror films have towns with names like Provident, or Happy Harbor, or My Little Pony or some shit. But, no, they just play it straight. It's like Tolkien really named Sauron Darko, but forgot to add "the Dark God of the Dark" subtitle.
Everything about this film is lazy. The acting is ho-hum, the action feels borrowed, we see the monster everywhere in order to keep scenes "scary", and no one ever has a good idea, or even a spectacular bad idea, about how to fight her until the very end.
It's not like the basic "stay in the light" concept is bad. Human beings have kind of a natural problem with darkness. So how can you put obvious money into a film that still does nothing with it? Everything is so telegraphed and by-the-book, it's practically impossible to feel any tension whatsoever.