good film but with many flaws

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

I usually don't expect much from movies but this flick still manages to disappoint.First of all, it's not a horror movie.Not only does no one die, no one even gets hurt.Not to mention that nothing scary happens.This movie is basically a children's movie without the compelling plot.The entire movie is about two kids being left at home on a night when there's a thunderstorm.It's literally ninety minutes of one kid whining while the other one tells him to shut up.There's no plot or villain, just non-stop kiddie crap.While it wasn't exactly boring, it just wasn't worth watching.This is a movie that you don't need to see.

Production companies will do anything to get people to watch their movies, that's why the trailer almost always looks good, and the description on the back of the box is so eloquently written, but how often does the film live up to the hype? In the case of Fear of The Dark, it doesn't even come close! 12 year old, Ryan Billings (Jesse James), has an acute fear of the dark and his whole family thinks he's crazy. His parents rarely go out, but on one stormy night they decide to do so, leaving Ryan home alone with his older brother, Dale (Kevin Zegers), who comes to realize, his brother isn't so crazy after all. A creepy cover, a cool trailer, and an interesting description lead me to this film, even with the PG-13 rating. Some of the scariest supernatural horror film were rated PG-13, so i convinced myself, this would be a good choice. While the film has no affiliation with R.L. Stine, it is as much a Goosebumps tale as every other one of his stories. I was worried about the PG-13 rating, when the film doesn't even live up to that. How the company convinced the academy to give this film anything more than a PG rating is beyond me. Fear of The Dark has got to be the most tame and dull horror film I've ever seen. That being said, kids would absolutely love it, but it wasn't marketed to them and the creepy cover and PG-13 rating is exactly what would have kept them from this film. As for the performances, the two young actors were as you would expect, both Jesse James and Kevin Zegers, have look resumes as child actors and have done a ton of films like this and know exactly what their doing. Fear of The Dark is market towards teens and young adults when it should be in the children section. If you have kid, this is the kind of horror film you want them watching. As for me, I was utterly disappointed and shocked that a film like this would be marketed towards young adults.

This movie was a snore. I mean absolutely NOTHING happens for 90 percent of the movie. Then when something does its a letdown. The "monsters" looked like a bad halloween mask and the most violent act was when one of the monster held the kid briefly by the throat. Thats IT!The actors weren't terrible given the horrible writing, but they were wasting their talents on this bore.The whole movie is one long buildup with ZERO payoff.Seriously, why Isn't this rated G??? This was NOT a horror movie. This could have been shown on Nickeloeon.

This has to be a contender for one of the worst films of all time. First of all the film doesn't make sense. My guess is the screenwriter is a monkey or maybe another member of the animal kingdom. There are more holes in the story than a pound of baby swiss. I mean, come on, where do these monsters come from and who are they? In the film they never explain. The only thing in the film worse then the screenplay is the acting. Well, the little boy, Jesse James, is actually not bad, but the guy, Kevin Zeggers, who plays his older brother sucks. The actress who plays his girlfriend gives an even more terrible performance. One could speculate that the only thing more painful than this film is castration with a rusty fishing knife, but even that is debatable. Did I mention the ending? The ending is one of the most clichéd pieces of crap I've ever experienced in my life. What happened to creativity? Most independent films I've seen don't have the money for big visual effects, so they make up for it with original writing and plot twists. Nope, 'Fear of the Dark' is about as original as a plagiarized term paper. 'Fear of the Dark' is the kind of movie that when completed, would make you feel relieved to get back to studying for an Organic Chemistry final. There's only one positive aspect about this film, once I think long and hard about it -- at least it's better then Miss Congeniality 2. Grade: F