Review of The Darkness (2016) by Asif H — 29 May 2016

The biggest mistake a horror movie can commit is by making the entity, which our lead protagonist are up against, not threating at all. This is the case of this film where the titular characters are laughable to the least.

This new supernatural horror entry into the once formidable horror films producer Blumhouse from director Greg McLean (who also helmed both the Wolf Creek movie) is simply a lazy film, and that is saying a lot compared to the recent crap fest the production house has been dropping.

Sometimes, a bad horror movie can have some redeeming quality to make it at least watchable for its runtime even if you'll forget about it the next day. But this horror flick is so inept at everything it tries to accomplish that it only ends up triggering yawns.

Supposedly based on a true story, the film follows the Peter Taylor (Kevin Bacon) and Bronny Taylor (Rhada Mitchell) who go on a camping trip to the Grand Canyon with their teenage daughter Stephanie (Lucy Fry) and autistic son Michael (David Mazouz).

While exploring, Michael ends up falling into an old cave below the canyon. These caves navigate to a shrine of some sort which consists of five stones. Intrigued by these stones, Michael takes them for himself which only leads to a living nightmare for the Taylor family as these stones bring terrible misfortune to those who posses it.

The film's focus is primarily on what happens to the individual family members and the bonds between them as things go from bad to worse, but there are also strange happenings inside the Taylor house.

Scary shadows are seen, strange noises are heard, unusual animals appear, the neighbor's dog starts barking a lot more and black handprints appear on walls, bedsheets and, eventually, people. Fearing some kind of haunting, Bronny discusses all of this with Peter's boss Simon's wife, Wendy (Ming-Na Wen) who once used a Native American spiritualist to heal her sick son.

The plot has the smallest seeds of potential I think in the aspect of the child with autism. There could be something with a horror movie that uses a child who has this disorder and has some sort of psychic or supernatural connections to things, it could make for a good premise for a movie.

But here, all the family members pin the events on Mikey's autism. To be perfectly frank, the way this film used autism as a plot device to explain the supernatural was offensive. He's not an evil kid but his mental deficiency is used as an explanation as to why he is more susceptible to supernatural manipulation.

And this is not just a blind accusation pointed out by one of the parents, out of paranoia. When Peter is doing 'research' on the internet, there are many articles pointing out the connection between autism and paranormal activity (no pun intended).

I've seen some pretty ridiculous explanations about possessed children in horror films (Blumhouse's own Insidious included) but this made me furious. Speaking of pitiful explanations, the mythology behind the stones is so ridden with plot holes, it gets really annoying.

It's incredibly muddled and their appearances are reminiscent of everything from Sinister to Paranormal Activity. Part of what increases the familiarity surrounding the film is the visual composition and shot structure.

Too many shots are of shadowy figures moving hastily through dark corridors and vapid living rooms. Director McLead leaves no cliché behind in this mishmash; even bringing in a Poltergeist-esque climax that is both disappointing and nonsensical.

There aren't any scares because every time something that resembles a shock comes along that thing isn't scary! It's a faucet! The only thing that came out of the faucet was a little bit of water, they didn't even try to put blood or black crap coming out of it or anything! What undoes the 'scares' even further is the sheer amount of filler scenes and subplots.

Because of the presence of the stones, the family's inner demons begin to surface. The mother becomes an alcoholic, the father almost has an affair and the daughter develops an eating disorder. None of these subplots have any worthwhile payoff or connect to the intentions of the stone spirits.

There's hints that these problems were prominent well before the stones came along; all of those problems are implied to have occurred prior to the events of the film, which makes them feel even more pointless.

The film is generic all the way down to its title - can you imagine the faces lit up when the actors (who did get paid anyway so whatever) are told they'll be in a new horror movie produced by Jason Blum (who is still earning brownie points for backing Whiplash), and then comes a script like this and those faces fall a little flat.

The lead supernatural antagonist known as Anaasází (or, Anasazi) or simply the Ancient ones despite their interesting lore, end up looking hilarious. More importantly they are not the haunting kind.

They're just bad influences. Instead of rattling chains or causing people to think their faces are peeling off, the poltergeists in the film encourage Bacon to carry on an affair, Mitchell to drink heavily, and their daughter to suddenly develop bulimia.

All of this is a diversionary tactic, because the poltergeists want to kidnap Michael. Really? The performances are also sub par. These aren't all necessarily bad actors really; Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell have done excellent work in major films for major artists.

Here, it's slumming in a story that feels like its grafted plot points and character beats from a Lifetime movie which doesn't allow them to do much. Lucy Fry has no job other than to scream and cry in the whole movie, while David Mazouz, who plays an interesting version of the younger Bruce Wayne/Batman in the FOX show Gotham, is reduced to a ridiculous role.

And what are Jennifer Morrison and Ming Na Wen doing here?. On the whole, 'The Darkness' is a disappointing and a condescending sad excuse of a horror movie which is not frightening in the least.

 The only scary thing about this movie is how bad it is.