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Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures
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Emma Caulfield (left), Lee Cormie and Chaney Kley star in "Darkness Falls," now playing.
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By Lindsay Utz
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday January 23, 2003
Going to the movies is fun, inspiring and sometimes even enlightening. We always remember a good movie, and sometimes if it's bad, so bad that it's good, we remember it anyway. And then there's always · dun dun DUN: the brain damage thriller that, instead of really scaring us, simply pierces our eardrums and fries our mind with one excruciatingly loud shrilling sound after the next.
"Darkness Falls" is a brain damage thriller. The BDT is really fascinating when you think about it, for it goes beyond the formulated horror film. Indeed, the BDT is cutting-edge, really pushing those boundaries of convention by exploring new sound techniques that not only cue the audience to be frightened but cause severe hearing damage as well.
From what my poor, sizzled brain does remember, it goes something like this: Man ö Kyle (Chaney Kley) ö returns home to confront his troubled past and rescue his childhood sweetheart, Woman ö Caitlin (Emma Caulfield) ö and her younger brother, Boy ö Michael (Lee Cormie) ö from an evil spirit of some woman who has haunted the town of Darkness Falls for more than 150 years.
Summary: If you go into the dark, you will die. So we've offered some good advice by the whispering child: "Don't go into the dark!" Imagine it; in a childlike whisper, it's bone-shaking.
The evil spirit who haunts the town isn't all that scary. She whips through the air at high speeds and does this funny little jiggle of the arms. In fact, she's probably really just one of the gaffers in disguise. That's beside the point though.
If director Jonathan Liebesman is trying to be funny, he's succeeded. But it seems as if he really wants his film to be scary, and judging by the teeth-chattering brain-damaged audience, he has accomplished this. Bad films do work for a lot of people. Mindless movie equals lots-o'-money, so there, this BDT is sure to rake in millions at the box office this weekend.
For the most part, I appreciate the cliched horror film, I really do. But "Darkness Falls" is just plain nauseating. With its extremely fast-paced editing, disorderly camerawork and stressful soundtrack, you don't know what to do with yourself, except maybe close your eyes and pray for it to all be over soon. But you don't seek escape because you're scared; you're just in agony, sitting and painfully awaiting the next assaulting sound.
Somewhere between all this noise and the endless shards of breaking glass and more and more screeching is some pretty horrendous acting. You can practically see the teleprompter's glow running down the faces of the actors. In actuality, this may have been a more interesting and less painful movie had they just put the script up on the screen so that we could read it for ourselves.
Originally, the film was going to be called "The Tooth Fairy," after the evil spirit who is actually a killer tooth fairy. It's such a shame that they didn't keep this alternative title and dress the evil spirit in a little Tinkerbell outfit and give her a knife or something. Now that's good, a pink and glittery killer tooth fairy who ÷ I don't know ÷ cuts children's teeth out or something. Parents could really give their little ones a good scare.
The film's most redeeming quality was that when the screen went pitch black halfway through the film, for a moment there was silence.
