Darkness
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hacker ! STOp !: Giancarlo Giannini, Lena Olin, Anna Paquin
Synopsis: A teenage girl (Paquin) moves into a remote countryside house with her family, only to discover that their gloomy new home has a horrifying past that threatens to destroy the family.
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| Darkness (2004) | | | NA | NA |
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You know how I’m constantly bitching about how we Canadians are often denied a theatrical release for quality genre films, like Below and Donnie Darko? Well, after being on the shelf for two years, Alliance Atlantis, in their infinite wisdom, finally decided to throw Darkness into theatres and surprisingly include Canada, as well. Now, after sitting through it last night, I’m reminded of the age-old proverb, “be careful what you wish for”.
Simply put, Darkness is complete ass. It is possible that with all the Asian cinema I’ve absorbed over the past few years that I’m just getting tired of ghost stories, especially since Hollywood seems so incapable of doing it right recently - Sixth Sense and What Lies Beneath are the only decent titles I can think of offhand. When I saw Brian Yuzna (Society, ROTLD3) in the credits as producer, I thought for sure that Darkness would have some sort of wacky, underground charm. Nope.
Darkness is a thinly disguised The Shining, but to compare this dreck with the Kubrick staple is an insult to his memory. Seriously, it’s nicked everything from the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday etc narrative to the two ghostly kids standing in the hall (I shit you not, you’ve seen the commercial). There were several moments where I thought the father was going mug “Here’s Johnny” to the camera. Also, when you’re borrowing stuff from the average-at-best 2003 flick Darkness Falls, you know you’ve got problems.
Darkness is one of those films that is so poorly written that you’re two steps ahead of the main characters at all times. Speaking of the characters, how one-dimensional can you get? I felt embarrassed for Anna Paquin because I like her and she had nothing to work with. Lena Olin and Giancarlo Giannini seemed to be sleepwalking through their roles at some points. Anna Paquin’s boyfriend character Carlos (who looks like he just walked out of an Argento film) is totally useless. The last twenty minutes are absolutely unbearable. It makes the last act of Saw look like a masterpiece.
Just when I thought that I was going to have trouble picking out the worst film of the year for my 2004 wrap up, along comes Darkness and makes my job easy.
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Copyright© Written By: Tom Servo
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