At a paltry 85 minutes director Jonathan Liebesman has kept Darkness Falls short enough that it shouldn't bring on any psychotic episodes or "night terrors," but it may still be long enough to result in symptoms of "fast forward finger" and "intense stare at VCR time counter."
The film stars Chaney Kley as Kyle Walsh, a young man trying to help out his childhood friend Caitlin, played by Emma Caulfield, as she tries to figure out why her younger brother Michael is experiencing night terrors. Young Michael is reliving the grisly tooth fairy hell that Kyle went through as a child.
For the sake of any misguided soul that actually wants to rent this film, I'll avoid from revealing any true spoilers, but rest assured that the story is thinner than the weakest slasher movie, so anyone who's watched a half dozen or so horror films should know exactly what is coming and when. There's the obligatory "killer goes to cop shop to kill all cops" scene, a glut of characters introduced only to be picked off, and the usual "killer kills everyone quickly but waits just long enough with main characters that they can be saved" action sequences. Yuck. Still, if laughing at bad movies is your thing this might be funnier than any comedy.
The idea of a tooth fairy that chases people around when they're out of the light sounds silly, but then so does the idea of dying after watching a brief silent arty film. But while The Ring was exceptional, Darkness Falls is just nonsense.
The DVD contains some extra features, such as a very silly backgrounder on the legend of the tooth fairy, film commentary from both the director and the writer (as if watching this thing once wasn't bad enough!), a making of (I watched about two minutes before turning it off in disbelief that the people who made this film seemed genuinely happy with it), and some deleted scenes. The deleted scenes left me asking why the director chose to take out some of the few moments characterization in the story. Since the whole film weighs in at under 90 minutes, I'm left to assume that the scenes were just too coherent for the movie, and Liebesman wanted this to be as horrid as possible.
If this review saves one person an hour and a half of his or her life it's well worth it.
1/10 (and I rarely ever give that low a rating)
The film stars Chaney Kley as Kyle Walsh, a young man trying to help out his childhood friend Caitlin, played by Emma Caulfield, as she tries to figure out why her younger brother Michael is experiencing night terrors. Young Michael is reliving the grisly tooth fairy hell that Kyle went through as a child.
For the sake of any misguided soul that actually wants to rent this film, I'll avoid from revealing any true spoilers, but rest assured that the story is thinner than the weakest slasher movie, so anyone who's watched a half dozen or so horror films should know exactly what is coming and when. There's the obligatory "killer goes to cop shop to kill all cops" scene, a glut of characters introduced only to be picked off, and the usual "killer kills everyone quickly but waits just long enough with main characters that they can be saved" action sequences. Yuck. Still, if laughing at bad movies is your thing this might be funnier than any comedy.
The idea of a tooth fairy that chases people around when they're out of the light sounds silly, but then so does the idea of dying after watching a brief silent arty film. But while The Ring was exceptional, Darkness Falls is just nonsense.
The DVD contains some extra features, such as a very silly backgrounder on the legend of the tooth fairy, film commentary from both the director and the writer (as if watching this thing once wasn't bad enough!), a making of (I watched about two minutes before turning it off in disbelief that the people who made this film seemed genuinely happy with it), and some deleted scenes. The deleted scenes left me asking why the director chose to take out some of the few moments characterization in the story. Since the whole film weighs in at under 90 minutes, I'm left to assume that the scenes were just too coherent for the movie, and Liebesman wanted this to be as horrid as possible.
If this review saves one person an hour and a half of his or her life it's well worth it.
1/10 (and I rarely ever give that low a rating)
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