A Brilliant Conflict

The acting in this movie is really good.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's another Re-watch, I seen this once before, On DVD, Well , I don't where that DVD went to anyway, but this was netflix so I gave it another go! I remember fews scenes from last time I seen, which was years ago! I thought Idea of the movie was really good, it had some decent setting, there could have been some really good moment here and there in this movie. Some scenes were decent however those scene didn't last to long, to be keep that tense feel to those scenes. I thought the movie worth watching, until the last 15 minutes, which I thought really bad, I didn't really think it fitted with the rest of the movie at all. 3 out of 10

Boy-oh-boy, I'm tellin' ya, this "uncensored" version of Darkness was certainly mighty tame by today's super-gruesome standards of horrific horror films.And, not only was its gore-level almost at the point of being anemic (which was truly unforgivable) - But, the effect of its overall scare-factor never once came close to scoring a frighteningly legitimate bull's-eye. Never.At times I thought that Darkness was, indeed, coming close to hitting its intended mark, but, then, it inexplicably held back at that crucial point of achieving its desired goal. And, so, Darkness failed to satisfactorily deliver the horrific goods.And, on top of that major disappointment, this film's story about a happy-go-lucky family who move into a house that holds within its walls an unspeakably terrifying secret, covered no new ground, whatsoever.Yep. You can bet that we've all certainly seen, in one way or another, this one's all too familiar and predictably prepackaged story umpteen bloody times.Mind you, Darkness did manage (at times) to create an atmosphere of tension-filled dread that actually held my attention to some degree.But, its mounting suspense that led up to its final, climatic "twist" lost tons of steam when a minor key-character in the story was put in the unfavorable position of having to explain (at verbatim) everything covering a long, 40-year stretch of time. This explanation conveniently tied up all of the loose ends (leading up to this frenzied moment) and even threw a solar eclipse into the mix, for good measure.Anyways - I figure that a lot of this film's significant downfalls can be attributed to its rating of being suitable for those viewers 14 years and older.So, with that in mind, any out-and-out horror, and gore, is certainly going to be carefully held in check so as not to totally gross-out, or corrupt, those dear, impressionable, prepubescent minds of the younger generation.

This is not a perfect movie but it's by no means awful or "sucky" as a few reviewers have so eloquently suggested. There is a lot here to like. Fantastic cinematography, good direction (for the most part), interesting story line (or at least it starts off interesting) and some great acting, especially from Anna Paquin. For the first half I was really engrossed and enjoying the film and thinking this would be one of my higher scoring reviews but then something happened and I disconnected from it. I remember thinking well this movie is really well done and I feel all the tension and suspense etc but something isn't quite right. And I'm still not 100% sure what that something is.Part of the problem was the last half of the movie seemed to be a bit of a mess. At times it seemed badly edited, disjointed and rushed. I couldn't understand half of what was being said, which is a shame because there were some not very entertaining but important plot explanations buried in that muddy audio. I have to agree with others here that the ending, at least in the cut version, is a hard to follow and rather abrupt and anti-climactic. The bit where the scene keeps switching between Reggie/Grandfather, Mom & kid, Dad, bloke with the cane etc.... were just too jumbled and very difficult to work out what was going on. At that point the film slid into "silly" when before that it had been sophisticated and convincing. The father character seemed to become too over the top to the point of ridiculous. The mother's complete disconnect from her family was a bit hard to come at too even from the start. Maybe there was a backstory to her bizarre behaviour. I think it might have helped to have developed her character a bit more. Even showing her at her workplace to give her some context. (where did she work anyway??) Anna & the kid brother actor tried valiantly enough but it really couldn't pull itself back together in the final stages. I have since learnt that I watched the "cut" version which might explain why I found the last section of the movie so difficult to follow and erratic.Despite these issues, this movie is still a cut above the usual horror fare being regurgitated ad nauseum out there. There is almost no real violence and no gore at all but it's very creepy & suspenseful helped by a good but subtle music score. (An aside: I had to laugh at one negative review (rant) on here that complained about the ONE scene that had a bit of blood in it because they "don't like movies with blood in them" and then claimed to be an authority on what makes a great horror movie because they are "a huge horror movie fan" *snort*).If you like movies where it's more about the build up of suspense and dread, a chilling atmosphere and tension-building through good direction this movie is well worth watching even tho it employs some standard techniques. If you like lots of action, violence, shocks and bloody gore look elsewhere. :) Hope this review helps you make up your mind about whether to watch it. For my part, I think this is a badly under-rated flick that could have been much better but is a great improvement over most of the average offerings in this genre.

I'm a huge fan of the horror genre, and I really expected an alright haunted house horror movie before watching this, but that isn't the case. Every time it got kind of good, the scene ended and the next day began. It wasn't even scary. At least I don't think it was. I at least expected a couple of scares, but I think the filmmakers ruined almost every opportunity they to do so.To me it almost felt like more of a drama than horror. The father's mental sickness, and the family's struggle to co-exist got more focus than the horror elementsHowever it wasn't a complete disaster. There are worse horror movies out there. For example, towards the ending it got a little more interesting.Still, I think you should skip this one.