The Horror Show
The Darkness
by Greg McLean
Here’s what The Darkness is: one more version of the there’s-something-in-the-house extravaganza that limits itself to a derivative so bloodless that it makes the family drama more worthy than the supernatural front.
An unlikely duo stars in Greg McLean’s latest work. Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell portray Peter and Bronny Taylor, two parents struggling to cope with the troubles of their everyday life. After camping at the sun-baked terrain of the Grand Canyon, the Taylors return to their home in suburban Los Angeles only to have their lives disturbed by a deadly souvenir that their autistic son Michael (David Mazouz) brought back with him. The vile spirits of ancient demons follow them into their house and stir waves of chaos and mayhem once they start making their presence known.
Disturbing occurrences disrupt the family’s already distressed life, but there’s nothing that a bit of Googling can’t explain. Ultimately the Taylors will need something more than a browser to get rid of the malicious spirits that become more and more violent, and that’s when the psychics kick in.
We can’t blame McLean for not trying. He ticks all the boxes of the paranormal subgenre: extinct societies, demons and spirit animals, bizarre symbols and a portal to another dimension, but, what we do blame him for is the fact that he didn’t deliver something as awesome as Wolf Creek back in 2005 - an amazing horror movie that was intense, gory, exciting, and satisfying.
The Darkness, as a matter of fact, fails to satisfy on several levels. First of all, even though the scary scenes and the first signs of the haunting begin rather early, there’s nothing particularly eerie about them. They are simple, mundane, and fail to build up to a climax, and if that wasn’t enough, there is an entire subplot of family drama that takes the attention away from the horror. More damagingly, that particular drama feels like an indifferent time killer until the scary part, which is also mediocre.
Strike one for McLean as The Darkness succumbs to long stretches and lifeless scares that no one is a fan of. Maybe it would be a better idea to rewatch Wolf Creek, instead.
Maria Kriva, HMS
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