Review of The Darkness (2016) by Tyler S — 23 Jun 2016

The Darkness is, in many ways, a conventional, frequently predictable, and generally pretty familiar piece of haunted house cinema. Even the youngest of horror fans has seen a lot of these movies by now, and you can probably guess where this one is going long before it gets there. It includes several themes, ideas, and moments that we've seen in everything from The Haunting and Poltergeist to The Conjuring and Insidious. While McLean and company admirably aim for some relevance by tying the Taylors' haunting to their personal demons, ultimately The Darkness is just the same old show: things that go bump in the night, and the tasteful decor they defile. Bacon, Mitchell and especially young Lucy Fry are all quite effective in these dramatic scenes. Worthy of note is Lucy Fry's Stephanie Taylor, the actress really portrays the teen angst and hysteria convincingly. Once you accept that The Darkness is not exactly aiming for any originality awards, you can settle in and enjoy the solid performances: Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell work well together, plus we're offered a few too-brief moments from Matt Walsh, Paul Reiser, and Ming-Na Wen, which help to keep the flick afloat through the talkier bits. From there it's a comfortably simple collection of character development and jump scares until we hit a third act that's actually fairly creepy.

VERDICT: "In The Zone" - [Mixed Reaction] These kinds of movies are usually movies that had some good things, but some bad things kept it from being amazing. This rating says buy an ex-rental or a cheap price of the DVD to own. If you consider cinema, ask for people's opinion on the film. (Films that are rated 2.5 or 3 stars).