The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

IN A DARK PLACE is a cheap modern-day retelling of the Henry James story THE TURN OF THE SCREW, shot in Luxembourg with an American lead. It's a cheapjack version of the tale that does away with much of the plot and atmosphere you can see in earlier versions of the story - THE INNOCENTS will always be the granddaddy of these - and instead replaces them with B-movie tedium.There's no denying that Leelee Sobieski is an attractive young actress, but her acting skills seem to be rather limited. It says something that she spends most of the running time showing off her figure as much as possible, so you get the idea that the director was more interested in her looks than her talents. To make up for this disappointment in the acting stakes there's a welcome supporting role for the reliably good Tara Fitzgerald, but she doesn't have a great deal to work with.IN A DARK PLACE is slow, slow, slow, with unappealing characters and a distinct lack of momentum that makes it difficult to sit through. There are hints at nastiness here and there but they're way too subtle, and the film just sort of crawls to a sleep-inducing conclusion without ever interesting the viewer en route. It's a bore, frankly.

A diabolically poor attempt at creating a ghostly thriller. A somewhat psychologically abused and fragile teacher finds work as the nanny for 2 troubled children in a huge creepy mansion house in the country. She is then confronted with hearing strange noises and other events that elude to the ghosts of previous employees haunting the house. Sounds good so far? Potentially yes, sadly in reality no. It slithered along at the pace of an arthritic snail on salt leaving the viewer (well this one anyway) wanting a refund for 90 minutes of life.The trailer and movie poster/box cover suggested the presence of suspense and gripping drama. Unfortunately there were neither. Not one scare or single moment of 'edge of seat' thrill. Isn't that why we watch these particular type of movies? You do not need blood and guts to create fear, suspense or even subtlety - look at 'The Others' or 'The ring' or 'The woman in black' or 'The Haunted' to name a few. In fact the only mystery was why the hell I sat for 90 minutes waiting for any redeeming feature. I have no idea what point this film was trying to make as any connection with the characters was lost in confusion and the point of the story unclear. The only meagre spec of salvation was a scene of mild lesbian eroticism which to be honest was irrelevant to anything in the plot and possibly designed to prevent the watcher from falling asleep!!! Ultimately, In a dark place is exactly where this film should be left......... to remain for ever!

I don't know why they had to tap Henry James' novel, "The Turn of the Screw", to get this plot together. The writers could have knocked off a one- or two-sentence treatment: "Mad woman hires out as nanny and harasses her two young charges to death." James' story, and Jack Clayton's adaptation of it in 1963, are full of ambiguity. This version isn't.Leelee Sobieski is okay, as are the other performers. Sobieksi has the advantage of not being a star in the Hollywood sense, but an actress instead. Her figure is a little shapeless and her eyes, with all that black liner, too close together, and in this wintry English setting, her pallor against the snow gives her face the appearance of a charcoal sketch. She's the kind of woman a discerning man might find himself staring idly at, while standing next to her in the supermarket checkout line, and slowly realizing -- "Gee, she ain't too homely." Her beauty is insinuating, and she's quite good in the role. The problem isn't with her, it's with the script.Tara Fitzgerald as Mrs. Grose has a tough job -- projecting sensuality undercut by a touch of the sinister. The two kids are alright, but they are, after all, kids.But never mind all that. The screenplay and direction bungle the task. Where to begin. The direction has a lot of arty touches, none of them original. Three figures in black silhouette skip along the top of a snowbank against a washed-out winter sky. Lots of cross-cutting during critical scenes. Intrusive flashbacks to Sobieski's youth, incomprehensible much of the time. (Okay, she's suddenly a little girl oscillating on a park swing and she looks back over her shoulder and smiles at the camera and -- wham -- we're back in the present.) These arty effects -- done with accomplished camera work, though -- deteriorate quickly into every cliché from the horror movie script guide. Guttural, animal sounds in the middle of the night, coming from nowhere. An intense electrical storm in the midst of winter, straight out of a B horror movie. Shock cuts accompanied by stings on the sound track. Before the movie is half over, Sobieski is already creeping around holding a butcher knife. Child abuse is hinted at. Lesbianism is shown. Graphic but brief nudity. (Too brief. A little gratuitous sex might have helped.) The monster's POV shots, where there be no monster.My attitude may be warped because Clayton's "The Innocents" was superb. It stuck pretty close to Henry James. James' Mrs. Grose was not the dominatrix she is here; she was an unimaginative old housekeeper. There is absolutely nothing in this version to compare with the scene in the garden in Clayton's movie, in which Deborah Kerr and the child watch a repugnant black beetle crawl out of the mouth of a marble cherub. Out of the mouths of babes! But not here. If Deborah Kerr as the governess may have been slightly delusional, perhaps prompted by her attraction to her dismissive employer, Leelee Sobieski is frankly loco. In the earlier movie Kerr first merely senses the two ghosts -- Quint and Miss Jessel -- and then glimpses them from afar. The closest Kerr comes is when she enters an elongated empty classroom and thinks she sees Miss Jessel weeping over the desk at the other end. Miss Jessel disappears as Kerr approaches, but Kerr finds a fresh teardrop on the desk. The "evil" that the ghosts represent is never made clear. Here, it's the sexual abuse of children. Ho hum.I don't know why they bother to remake films that were so good in their original form. I really don't. How about a remake of "Citizen Kane" with Tom Cruise? No? "Gone With the Wind" with Keanu Reeves and Brittany Spears? I've got it -- "On the Waterfront" with Rob Lowe and Paris Hilton.

I was walking past In A Dark Place one day at a rental store and I saw Leelee Sobieski on the cover of the film. It looked something similar to recent movies such as The Return and The Grudge, which I thought both of those films were very satisfying, even though this ended up being nothing like them really, so I decided to give this movie a try.At first, it looked really cool, when I put it in that is. The first near hour or so were fine, just fine, nothing special, but I was enjoying the build up and performances to an extent. Then, it took a turn for the worst. Everything started going horribly wrong and as the film dragged on I became more depressed, and more depressed with how the outcome of the film was turning out. The storyline just gets so ridiculously poor and overrated, and everything they had built up with mildly entertaining values were thrown out the window near the end of the film. Why, how, Leelee, I thought you were great! What made you take part in this movie when you saw how the character development is demolished in the last half hour, or did you even notice? Sure, there was some stuff I found in the movie that was entertaining, I have already stated that, but I felt as if my insides were going to explode from how horrible the last half hour of the film was and how horrifically boring and inane Sobieski and everyone elses' character became. If you love Leelee Sobieski enough, avoid this movie, because I really was expecting more from her and the movie itself seeing as how I enjoy her as an actress. I'm sure her heart will thank you if you don't watch this, for now every time she hears about her role in this film, as often as that probably isn't, I bet she falls to the ground and bursts into tears. . .