Posted: 01/31/032
Darkness Falls (2003)
by John Flores
Don't turn the lights out or you'll fall asleep.
I don't know about you, but when I was a kid the Tooth Fairy was never anything you feared. She was a nice little woman that would come and leave you some money for losing a tooth. Not a bad deal all in all. Darkness Falls ensures that any child who witnesses this cinematic folly will forever fear losing their baby teeth and not give a damn about the spare change left under the pillow.Darkness Falls takes place in small town Maine, where the supernatural always seems to hit, and revolves around the local legend of the Tooth Fairy. A woman, one hundred and fifty years ago, was very liked by the towns children. The children would bring her a tooth every time they lost it and she'd give them a gold coin, thus the nickname Tooth Fairy. One day some kids turn up missing, the town blames her, and they hang her in the square. Of course with her last dying breath she curses the town forever.
The movie follows misunderstood Kyle Walsh, played by Chaney Kley, as he struggles to come to grips with his fear of the Tooth Fairy as he was the only person to ever survive an attack by her. He comes back to town after twelve years to help childhood sweetheart Katelyn Green, played by Emma Caulfield, with her insomniac little brother who has also seen the evil monster. Of course nobody believes Kyle and they wish he never came back and Katelyn struggles with believing him cause she has never stopped loving him. At the end we have 83 minutes of cliché.
The movie makes you jump a bit at best, and has no real horror factor. Its C.G.I. work is tiresome and in no way innovative. For a feature that doesn't even hit 90 minutes, the movie really seems to drag. In fact, the only thing that had any type of fright factor was the sound. The movie fluctuated from bearable audible levels to ridiculous bass and treble that preceded the showing of the monster.
Director Jonathan Liebesman, in my opinion, does not hang for this one. I blame writer John Fasano who obviously did not take the time to create characters with any substance. Kyle Walsh is the typical wrongly accused outcast who is beat up the whole film, but in the end saves the day. He's also plagued with some of the worst dialogue I've heard in a while. Caufield's character is about as deep as a puddle in the sense that we no nothing of what her last twelve years were like and why is she the only one taking care of her brother? The only other characters in the film exist solely so they can die.
Darkness Falls fails at any attempt to be a quality film. It's disappointing for me to see a talent like Emma Caufield wasted on such a scrap piece. I was not happy at all with the way this film turned out and do not recommend a trip with the girlfriend to see it, grab a burger and go rent About A Boy.
John Flores is a filmmaker, music reviewer, and freelance writer, based in the great city of Chicago.
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