Review of The Darkness (2016) by Dottheeyes — 12 May 2016

A dispiriting, dull, and incredibly tame American debut by gifted Australian director Greg McLean, who infused Wolf Creek with brutality and despair vivid enough to earn Roger Ebert's zero-star vitriol and turn the heads of hardcore genre fans worldwide.

He also directed Rogue, an old-school creature feature (tourists versus salt-water crocodile) with a genuine sense of adventure. Here, sadly, he is adrift amid Nancy Meyers production design and the hoariest of James Wan-style jump scares.

The story turns on a privileged and modestly dysfunctional family (the patriarch is a sleepy Kevin Bacon) who encounter a supernatural menace after their autistic son chances upon mystical Native American artifacts during a trip to the Grand Canyon.

It is the type of film in which characters frequently turn to Google to find hyper-specific information regarding otherworldly arcanum. McLean seems completely unable to energize the material, staging one of the most anticlimactic and languid exorcisms in a long time, and his bid to introduce grit by assigning every family member a flaw—father has a wandering eye, mother hides vodka in the sofa, sister is bulimic, brother is autistic—is undermined by anemic character development and the total absence of anything resembling interest in or sympathy for these people.