A Review of "The Darkness"

The Darkness is a 2016 film written and directed by Greg McLean. The film centers around a separated family with a bulimic teenager daughter, an autistic son, a recovering alcoholic mother, and a conflicting father. The film begins with the family on a camping trip in the Grand Canyon. While on the trip Micheal, the son, wonders away and finds a cave where five stones were strategically placed in a semicircle. On each of these stones had a different symbol craved into it. It is later realized that the symbols stand for the wolf, crow, snake, bull, and coyote. Micheal decides to take the stones home with him. The following morning Bronny, the mother, and Peter, the father, begin notice strange smells around the house and Micheal has made a new friend called Jenny that only he can see. While, Peter and Micheal's sister, Stephanie, go off to work and school, Micheal and Bronny stay home as even stranger things begin to happen. Fires start, black hand prints appear, and doors open by themselves. Peter dismisses it and Stephanie blames her brother, but Bronny suspects much more sinister things are at play. Still, months go by before Stephanie is discovered to be hiding jars of vomit under her bed. She is sent to a therapist for recovery and as soon as she returns she is bitten by her neighbor's dog in the dead of night. Peter finally realizes the danger his family is in after he looks in his daughter's window and sees a shadow of a bull. He goes to investigate to find Stephanie being choked by invisible hands. He gathers his family and they go to a hotel for the night. The next morning Peter calls his boss's wife's healer in hope that she can cleanse the house. But in truth she is no help at all.

I rated the film a 54. For a horror film it was hardly scary. It had all the right elements and set itself up well but then it just fell flat. Moments that should've been set up for extreme scares were not executed very well at all. And the same jump scare was used over and over again. After it's failure the first time it did not get any better. Some events that seemed to occur in weeks were really stretched out in months and some characters were introduced just to never be seen again. And some scenes were just plain out boring.

But check it out.

Trailer.