Sometimes, the vivid memories that you have of a film have absolutely nothing to do with its actual quality. Take 2003’s fairly forgettable horror flick, Darkness Falls, for example that Wikipedia claims has since developed a small cult following despite having precious little to recommend it. I will never manage to forget this American/Australian production primarily because it was the first horror movie me and my decidedly horror-phobic wife ever went to saw together which resulted in one of the many, cheap jump scares causing her to have a complete body spasm and ultimately driving her forehead directly into my eyesocket.
Hiwever, beyond that unforgettable instance of blunt force trauma to my orbital bone, nothing else about the movie stands out in the slightest; but while this can be attributed to a rather tortured production, the result is something that would best off be left in the dark.
The questionably named town of Darkness Falls in Maine has something of a salty history as back in the middle of the 19th century, an elderly widow by the name of Matilda Dixon earned herself the nickname of The Tooth Fairy due to her kindly habit of giving the young, adoring children of the town gold coins when they’d lose a tooth. However when a freak fire leaves her hideously disfigured, the superstitious townsfolk became wary of her and lynched her immediately for being a witch when two local children went missing. Of course poor old Matilda was innocent, but it’s exactly this sort of miscarriage of justice that tend to result in vengeful spirits angrily claiming victims in some sort of weirdly specific scenario.
Finding this out the hard way was Kyle Walsh who found his phobia of the dark entirely justified when his mother is killed by the ghostly form of Matilda who now lurks entirely in the dark and murders anyone who looks upon her ragged, masked visage. Blamed for his mother’s murder, Kyle promptly spends the rest of his childhood under psychiatric care, but twelve years later he gets a phone call from his old childhood crush, Caitlin asking for help. It seems that her little brother, Michael, is currently undergoing treatment for his severe nyctophobia and she is desperately looking for some advice.
Realising that little Michael is having the same issues with with a rampaging, darkness ghost like he did, Kyle races back to his old home town to try and ignore the jeers of the natives with long memories and try to warn everyone that a murderous spirit is on the rampage. The only way to remain safe from the grasping claws of Matilda is to stay in the light, but when the sun sets and the town’s power goes out, the charred, shrieking old buzzard gets the opportunity to really go to town.
It’s so strange that virtually everything that occured around the movie Darkness Falls proves to be far more memorable that the film itself. Receiving a Glasgow kiss by my jumpy, wife-to-be is one thing, but the rather torturous production of this motion picture also proves to be far more gripping that anything that actually unfolds within it. For a start, the original premise for the movie was for the Tooth Fairy herself to be a far more fantastical creature that would resemble more of a twisted version of the fairy tale itself that saw the main antagonist look more like a monstrous version of the title being with actual teeth embedded into its skin. However, when this design proved to be rather unsatisfactory, Stan Winston’s guys were brought in to realise a more down to earth version that resembled a cross between the sizzled visage of Freddy Krueger and a more standard witch type look. However, as the central monster changed, so did the film, shifting from a more mysterious thriller that originally suggested that Kyle may actually be hallucinating his ethereal foe to a much more contemporary scare-fest that became more about running and screaming than outright ambience.
Whether that version of Darkness Falls would actually have been any good, we’ll never know, but it had to been a little more interesting than this horribly basic alternative that wears the scars of its post-production mauling in almost every scene. The tell-tale signs are all there – clunky expository dialogue that sounds delivered in a vacuum; a surprisingly short runtime; ten minutes of end credits – and what remains is pretty dull even though the pace of the finish film admittedly moves. However, all Darkness Falls ultimately is just a loose string of scare sequences that involve Matilda’s form lunging out of the shadows while screaming like Yoko Ono in full swing. It gets real repetitive, real soon and matters certainly aren’t helped by the fact that the choppy editing reduces every character to paper thin cardboard cutouts so you couldn’t give much of a toss if anyone makes it out alive.
While Matilda’s villainous look has enough details about it to show Stan Winston was probably reading from the Big Book Of Crafting Horror Villains cover to cover, I can’t help but feel that the more fantastical version might have been more a bit more interesting.
You see, the movie keeps doing weird things that constantly usurps Matilda as a constant threat – for a start, the whole scared-of-the-light thing was done far better in Pitch Black and then again over ten years later in David F. Sandberg’s Light’s Out which is basically the same movie and the fact that the ghostly creature screams constantly whenever she’s on screen proves to be more annoying than frightening. However, the worst of it comes when we reach the climax and find that the filmmakers haven’t come up with a single intelligent way to vanquish it’s shrieking she-bitch. I’m not entire sure of the science of it all, and maybe I’m being a bit too picky, but I’m not sure who though that setting fire to a ghost would be a satisfying end to the movie, but frankly it just raises more questions than it answers. Also, I havent read my Tobin’s Spirit Guide recently, but I’m not particularly sold on how setting your own fist on fire and punching a spirit in the face is enough to deliver a climactic coup de grace when no real rules for Matilda’s vaquishing have been bothered to be put in place.
First time feature helmer Jonathan Liebesman does what he can despite not being left much to play with after all the changes, but he certainly isn’t helped by a cast who all deliver their lines like they’re struggling to stave off repeated bouts of narcolepsy – which I have to say, prove to be exceptionally catching to the audience. Even the presence of Buffy alumni, Emma Caulfield doesn’t manage to diffuse the sheer amount of blank stares that come from the assembled cast.
Despite a potentially rich concept, Darkness Falls and never is truly able to get back up as some brutal reformatting has plainly purged the movie of every single original idea it ever might have had. But while the flick may mamage to score the odd successful jump scare if you turn the volume up and the lights down, this is one frightener that remains dull no matter the quality of the brightness.
Darkness Flails.
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