With a name as bland as The Darkness, lets say my expectations weren’t exactly high.
A family returns from a Grand Canyon vacation, haunted by an ancient supernatural entity their son unknowingly awakened.
From the man who shocked us all with the villainous horror icon Mick Taylor (Wolf Creek), Greg McLean comes through with a very odd misstep for a director who usually has such flair and style. The Darkness is a very boring horror movie with no horror, filled with unlikeable characters and very few scares.
Oddly, this well casted horror is more interesting for its family drama than for its bloodless shocks. Kevin Bacon pulls through, but it isn’t enough to save the film.
There are zero great moments in this film and some really offensive stereotyping. The characters are all cardboard cut outs of domestic challenges – We have the philandering father (Kevin Bacon as Peter), the alcoholic mother (Radha Mitchell as Bronny – yes that is her name), the bulimic teenager (Lucy Fry) and the kid (David Mazouz) who has a connection with Native American spirits because of his autism…
PUUUUHHHLEEAASSSSE!
The Darkness is just not very interesting. It’s a horror film made up of long stretches of time in which nothing happens, and a revelation that comes from a YouTube clip… that has to be shown twice. This has got to be the lamest exposition ever. There is nothing new here and it isn’t helped by having the most generic name for a horror film possible.
1.0 / 10
“The god you may be familiar with… cannot help you now”
The Final Scene 
This thing blew. Big time. I couldn’t even bring myself to review it.
But I’m glad you gave it a proper hosing, especially that bullshit about the autism/Native American connection.
Good lord.
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It’s unfortunate cause I really do like Greg McLean…. This was just a major mess
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It’s difficult to like a movie when all the main characters are so unlikable. Dad has a reputation for cheating, mom has a drinking problem, the daughter has teenager anger issues, and the son is autistic and sucks up all of the attention. Carol Ann had a much better family. The family vacations in the Arizona wilderness where the son finds a hidden chamber and brings back some stones that hold Anasazi spirits. Some good special effects, but the movie just doesn’t come together.
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I agree. The major downfall of this movie was the characters. Which is rather unfortunate as I quite like Greg McLean… Here’s hoping he makes up for it with The Belko Experiment !
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