Movie Review: Darkness Falls

Darkness Falls (2003) 

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman

Written by Joe Harris, James Vanderbilt, John Fasano

Starring Cheney Kley, Emma Caulfield, Sullivan Stapleton, Emily Browning

Release Date January 24th, 2003 

Published January 23rd 2003 

Horror films are allowed to set there own rules. Oftentimes a horror film will make up those rules as they go. However once those rules are in place violating those rules becomes one of the most disappointing aspects of that film. The latest addition to the horror genre, Darkenss Falls, sets it's own rules in the first five minutes of the film. It then sets about breaking those rules over and over again making for a maddening film-going experience.

The film begins with a prologue about an old woman named Matilda Dixon who lived in the seaside town of Darkness Falls, Maine. Matilda is beloved by the town's children because when they lost their teeth they could take them to Matilda and exchange then for a gold coin. After a fire severely burned Matilda's face she was unable to leave her home during daylight hours and when she did leave she wore a frightening porcelain mask. When two of the town's children go missing one night, Matilda is blamed and hanged but not before placing a curse on the town. The two kids were found the next day having ran away on their own.

We jump forward in time to a 12-year-old boy who has just lost his last baby tooth. The boy's name is Kyle Walsh. One night Kyle makes the mistake of looking into the eyes of the legend known as the Tooth Fairy. Now, one of the rules established early in the film is that if you looked in the eyes of Matilda's ghost she would hunt you until she killed you. Kyle's only savior is the a flashlight at his bedside. The tooth fairy is sensitive to light and when exposed is badly injured. Kyle's mother, not believing the legend, goes to his room to show Kyle there is nothing to be afraid of , and the tooth fairy slits her throat. Kyle is blamed for the murder and spends the next 12 years in a mental institute.

Cut to the present, Kyle is out of the institute but still afraid of the dark. Now living in Vegas, Kyle is on every medication known to man to deal with what he witnessed. Back in Darkness Falls, a young boy is experiencing the same behavior as Kyle. The young boy is Michael Greene and he is the brother of Kaitlin, who happens to have been Kyle's girlfriend, before his supposed psychotic episode. Kaitlin tracks down Kyle and asks for his help in treating Michael which brings Kyle back to Darkness Falls to face his fear.

Darkness Falls is a slowly paced, light-and-shadow thriller that has a few very effective moments. One that stands out is the opening ten minutes with a very well shot sequence of Kyle's mother being killed. However, after that the film comes apart, setting it's rules and then setting about breaking them, creating many a logical flaw that takes away from the film and really irks any intelligent filmgoer who is paying attention.

First, does the Tooth Fairy only kill you if you live in Darkness Falls or can you just leave and she stays there? If the Tooth Fairy can't go into the light then how is she with moonlight? If the Tooth Fairy is after Kyle, why does she kill a random drunk who was fighting with Kyle instead of going after Kyle?

Not that logic has it's place in most horror films but when rules are established in a horror film, violating those rules can be a film's biggest crime.

The film's premise is a hodgepodge of horror cliches lifted from such varied sources as Nightmare On Elm Street to the recently released They. The films biggest influence, the one it truly aspires to meet but fails to, is the moody atmospherics of a Stephen King novel. But what King is able to do with words, Darkness Falls is unable to do with images.

First time actor Chaney Kley plays Kyle and makes it look like Clonaid succeeded in cloning Mark Wahlberg. Though it's kind of like Michael Keaton in Multiplicity, Kley only got some of Wahlberg's talent and not the best of it. Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Emma Caulfield is a sexy, smart choice for a lead actress but saddled with a frightened victim role. In service of Kley she isn't given much to work with.

First-time director Jonathan Liebesman gives a good account of himself technically with an occasional scary setup but unfortunately his special effects and story are subpar. The Tooth Fairy character as created by Stan Winston's effects company is a dull recreation of horror characters past and the more screentime the monster logs, the more unscary it becomes. In interviews, the director said that the monster wasn't onscreen until the closing act but that the studio was so impressed they rolled out some cash for reshoots that bumped the films release date from mid-September to January and made the monster more prominent, which exposed it's flaws.

Whether the film was the victim of studio overkill or an inexperienced director, Darkness Falls is yet another unsuccessful horror film that strives for scares but can illicit only indifference.