Review of Fear of the Dark (2003) by Ashley B — 26 Aug 2013

The story is about Ryan Billings played by the underrated Jesse James who is 12 years old and yet suffering from a 100% fear of the dark. His older brother Dale played by Kevin Zegers thinks his phobia is childish and crazy.

When their parents Eric and Sandy played by Charles Powell and Linda Purl go out to dinner, the boys are left home alone and when the electricity goes out, Dale begins to uncover Ryan's truth and realise that he wasn't crazy the whole time along with the help of Dale's girlfriend Heather Fontaine played by Rachel Skarsten.

When I first discovered the DVD of this movie in my garden shed, I was freaked out by the front cover and watching the movie freaked me out even more. This independent horror movie is sure worthy of truly adult 18 fun, a generational classic and will not bore for the 1990s/2000s generation.

The acting in this movie is very good. All actors turn in a very believable performance. The problem is that we don't get to establish them very well; the only two we get to establish are the two brothers Dale and Ryan.

Ryan keeps going on and on about how there are things in the dark that scares him and although it's a little bit repetitive, it's actually quite believable because people who are scared of something either don't want to talk about it or go on and on about why and how it's scary.

Dale on the other hand is known because his name is screamed every time Ryan is in trouble. I guess this is really nit-picky but I'm letting it loose. And by the way, the man who played the tall, cloaked villain; his real name was Derrick Damon Reeve and he's the one featured on the front cover and boy did he turn in a badass performance.

Fear Of The Dark gets a honorable 9.6/10.