DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO. I had been peeing giddily a little to see Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark since the summer of 2011. The trailer seemed promising. I viewed it la film, and I’m stuck between liking it enough to buy it one day when it’s in a Wal-mart bin for $10 and disliking to where I might ask for it as a birthday gift (May 28).
Why Brian likey. It has some nice suspense built into it. There are scenes when (if watching alone with no lights or adult supervision) you are kind of concerned for your well-being as well as that of the main character, little girl Sally. Which brings me to my next likey: little girl actress Bailee Madison. Though she tends to act too old for her own good, she can currently milk Hollywood’s teets as a great child actress. I may me biased because I enjoy watching children cry, but her cry-fest scenes are honestly remarkable and believable. Overall, the movie provides a great spooky-haunted-house atmosphere where, when watched in the appropriate setting, can appear kind of haunting.
Why Brian no likey. Maybe I just don’t care for Guillermo del Toro’s production skills (though I haven’t seen The Orphanage yet). Still, I haven’t liked anything he’s directed (not even Pan’s Labyrinth: deal with it), so maybe he’s the issue. He seems to be a fan of showing the audience his “feature’s creature*” a lot, perhaps more than necessary. I’m a fan of movie’s showing little of the monster/creature throughout the whole movie (Cloverfield, fax me). And Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark did a swell job of that up until about 40 minutes in. After that, I can practically draw the creatures from memory because they are in every inch of the rest of the movie. Hell, I even became attached to them because they start to become more cute and crafty towards the end of the movie. In closing: what the f with the R rating: I’ve seen more blood in a European Tampax commercial.
To summarize: what the movie has in chilling atmosphere and good acting from little girl Sally lacks in scares and a plot that is not by the numbers (I am not even sure what that means).
*not his penis
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