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| Courtesy: Dimension Films/Paramount |
Jaume Balagueró (REC and
REC 2)'s Darkness
came and went without much notice when it was released by Dimension
Films in 2004 after being shelved for two years, partly the victim of apathetic marketing, and partly
the victim of how by that time, Miramax/Dimension's post-Scream
horror boom was very much in
decline. But mostly it was the victim of the same problem that befell
so many other Miramax/Dimension titles: a disastrously bad
Weinstein-mandated re-edit which chopped the film down from an
already brisk-feeling 102 minutes to a barely-coherent 88, resulting
in a theatrical cut which was justifiably lambasted by critics. DVD
gave the film a chance at redemption when it was released in its
original unrated director's cut, and as one of the earliest horror
films of the DVD era to do so (before it became standard practice
like it is today) it gained a certain amount of attention in
cult-horror circles at the time. Not enough attention to allow the
film to endure as a cult classic however; in the intervening two
decades, Darkness has
largely been lost to time, a forgotten relic of an era when a lot of
genre fans will tell you that horror sucked. The film deserves
better. When viewed in its 102-minute director's cut (a very
important caveat - double-check the runtime before you watch, as both
cuts are still out there and equally common), Darkness
is a very pleasant surprise: a gorgeously shot, atmospheric
combination of haunted house and occult chiller which blends European
and American sensibilities very effectively. There is no denying that
it wears its influences on its sleeve, probably a little too much,
with elements obviously borrowed from The Amityville
Horror, The Shining,
and Dario Argento's Inferno,
but it uses these influences very effectively, and in the second half
does something genuinely unexpected with these elements, building to
a last act which is very much its own. Add to the mix an outstanding
cast of character actors including Lena Olin, Iain Glenn, and
Giancarlo Giannini, led by Anna Paquin at the height of her early
post-X-Men fame, and
you have a horror film with genuine cult potential that deserves a
lot more love.
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| Courtesy: Dimension Films/Paramount |
American
teenager Regina (Anna Paquin) feels like her life has been turned
upside down when her parents (Lena Olin and Iain Glen) relocate their
family to Spain, to live closer to her grandfather (Giancarlo
Giannini). But when her little brother suddenly becomes terrified of
the dark and starts drawing grim pictures of murdered children, and
her dad starts behaving increasingly erratically, she starts to
suspect that the countryside house that they have moved into may be
haunted. There is something living in the darkness of their house,
and the ghostly children haunting her brother every night are just
part of it. As the house grows more sinister and her father slips
further towards insanity, Regina seeks to get to the bottom of what's
wrong with their new home, but finds herself embroiled in an occult
mystery. Most of that plot will sound very familiar indeed to anyone
who has seen The Amityville Horror or
The Shining or any
number of other haunting movies where a dad starts to come unhinged;
the first half of Darkness is
very much the product of its influences, and it would not be unfair
to say that it is a bit derivative. But this is mainly an issue in
the first half: as the film goes on, it very much finds its own
direction and voice, mixing up the standard haunted-house proceedings
with some pleasantly creepy occult elements and hints of witchcraft
which feel inspired by Dario Argento's Three Mothers films,
particularly Inferno.
It is a film which at first feels so familiar in its story beats that
seasoned horror fans will assume they know exactly what is going to
happen, but then the movie pulls some pleasant surprises and goes in
a very different direction (even if a couple plot twists are still a
tad predicable), with a last act which is very strong, and is not the
last act you quite expect. |
| Courtesy: Dimension Films/Paramount |
But
even before Darkness
finds its more unique voice in the second half, it isn't that big a
problem that the plot feels quite familiar, because writer/director
Jaume Balagueró (making his English-language debut) handles it all
quite well in terms of visual storytelling and mood. This is a very
good-looking film, with quite an effectively spooky and gothic
atmosphere. The art design of the house is great, and Balagueró's
2.35:1 cinematography is very striking, full of spooky shot
compositions that reveal shapes and figures in dark corners of the
screen. As the title would lead you to hope, the cinematography and
art design both make excellent use of darkness and shadows, using
pools of blackness and the half-seen things within them to evoke a
creepy atmosphere and some good scares. For the most part the
emphasis is on the atmospherics and maintaining a creepy mood, rather
than using many jump-scares, but the film also has a couple of those
that are quite memorable. And in the last act, as the movie's occult
ideas come to the forefront, Balagueró pulls out the stops with some
very strong, creepy, bloody visuals that work wonderfully well.
While
I wasn't overly bothered by how the plot wears its Amityville
and The Shining
influences on its sleeve for the first half, my biggest complaint
about the film is that it is so backloaded, with most of its really
great ideas and images coming later in the film. It has a lot of very
strong elements in the back half which could have helped to make the
first half seem less like something we've seen before if they had
started to creep in earlier. I also wish these elements had started
to creep into the film earlier because they need a bit more room to
breathe. The occult mythology that the film develops is really
interesting and creepy, but it feels a tad underbaked, and needed a
few more minutes of development. It also leaves some unanswered
questions, and some creepy figures who lurk around the film who
basically don't get explained at all. But even with all of that said,
the atmosphere, tone, visual storytelling, and compelling concepts go
a long way to make up for these narrative flaws, and in general the
film works, and the last act feels very satisfying even if some
elements feel underexplained in retrospect. And keep in mind, I say
all this about the 102-minute director's cut, not the heavily cut
shorter version.
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| Courtesy: Dimension Films/Paramount |
I keep
stressing how if you are going to watch Darkness,
you really need to watch the director's cut. Unfortunately, that
isn't always easy to do, as both versions of the film appear on
streaming and blu-ray releases in approximately equal measure. This
is not one of those cases where the unrated director's cut just
contains a little bit more violence; indeed, not that much more
violence is even added back in by the director's cut, since this film
is much more about atmosphere than gore. Rather, the theatrical cut
demanded by the Weinsteins simply aimed to get the runtime below 90
minutes based on the half-baked idea that a PG-13 horror audience only has that long an attention span. Even at 102 minutes this film moves pretty briskly, and the
plot simply does not have 14 minutes to lose, resulting in the
theatrical version being just as sloppy and borderline incoherent as
its bad reviews at the time suggest. The director's cut very much
redeems the film, and should be the only version available. The film
is on various streaming platforms, but which version varies between them: currently HBO Max carries the 88-minute PG-13 version, while
Amazon Prime has the 102-minute director's cut to rent. The same is
true of the blu-ray releases: the film's standalone Blu-ray uses the
director's cut (in a surprisingly good transfer, considering the blu-ray came from Echo Bridge), but the various Miramax/Dimension multi-film
collections that it shows up on usually use the compromised
theatrical cut. However, the Dimension Films theatrical cut only came out in North America (European rights were handled by the film's Spanish co-producers), so if you are in another part of the world or are importing
a disc, you should be safe regardless. |
| Courtesy: Dimension Films/Paramount |
There
may be ways in which it feels a tad formulaic, especially in the
first half, but overall Darkness
is a quite compelling and spooky movie which, when watched in the
director's cut, is so much better than its scathing initial reviews
and lingering reputation would have you believe. This is a film that
seriously needs a reappraisal, of the sort that a really good modern
special edition would bring. It has its flaws, and I would not go so
far as to call it a forgotten masterpiece, but it is a strong early
work by a genre filmmaker who would go on to make a couple much-loved
cult classics, and it is a very effective, well-crafted horror movie
which does what it does very well, and builds to a genuinely
memorable and creepy last act. This film was a very pleasant surprise
when I first discovered it, expecting a mediocre movie from a pretty
weak era for the genre, and instead finding a genuinely quite good
movie that in the end was very much not what I expected. If you are
able to see Balagueró's original version, I would recommend checking
it out and giving it a chance. Hopefully now that Paramount has the
rights to the Miramax/Dimension library, rather than the largely
apathetic Echo Bridge or Lionsgate, there is a better chance for
Darkness to finally
get the special edition – and corresponding critical reevaluation –
that it deserves.
Score:
- Christopher S.
Jordan
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