Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark Retrospective
It is impossible to downplay my love for Guillermo del Toro. I have connected with all of his films and rewatched them multiple times. I even have a Crimson Peak poster in my apartment. Yet, for this post, I decided to focus on Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, which he co-wrote and produced. I remember seeing the posters and trailers for it as a kid and forgot about it until I saw the DVD at the local video store last week. Before watching it, I didn’t know anything about it, which made the film all that much better.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark was released in 2011 and served as Troy Nixey’s directorial debut. Guillermo del Toro produced and co-wrote it with Matthew Robbins, his writing partner for Mimic and Crimson Peak. Serving as a remake of the 1973 ABC television film of the same name, the budget was $25 million and made a little over $38 million worldwide.
The movie follows Sally Hurst (Bailee Madison), an eight-year-old girl who moves to Rhode Island to live with her father Alex (Guy Pearce) and his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) while they restore the forgotten Blackwood Manor for a wealthy client. Unbeknownst to them, malevolent creatures lie within the sealed fireplace in the basement. Their voices call out to Sally in the night, begging to be let free. After she opens the fireplace, the creatures escape and terrorize the family. The only way to escape the terror is by feeding the creature’s gruesome hunger for children’s teeth.
The film’s opening establishes the dark fantasy tone outright as Lord Blackwood, the original owner of the house, kills his housekeeper in the basement in the 1800s. Taking her teeth, he attempts to bargain with the creatures to return his son, but they refuse. The creatures surround him and drag him away into the darkness. He has been driven to murder as a means of trying to rescue his son, but it was all in vain. The setting of an isolated mansion in the 1800s draws upon the gothic aspect. It establishes how the mansion is haunted by the creatures and Lord Blackwood’s past deeds. Nixey directs this sequence incredibly well and cements the bleak tone. All you can feel is the rising doom ahead.
Like other projects with del Toro’s involvement, the production design is incredible. Blackwood Manor is gorgeous and breathtaking. It hearkens to the 19th century and feels like a fantastical forgotten time capsule of that period. The manor embraces the gothic element nature of the story and feels like the precursor for Crimson Peak. There is also a great contrast with the wooden artistry, wealthy flourishes, and stained glass windows of the manor and the stone and drab nature of the basement. The basement figuratively exists as the darker underbelly to Blackwood Manor.
The creatures are another highlight of the movie. Although they are compared to tooth fairies, they share more commonality with subterranean hairy and inhuman animals. They are hideous and rodent-like. One factor I immensely enjoyed was how the creatures could transform humans into monsters. Outside of the disturbing appetite for children’s teeth, the fact they can change humans makes them so much worse. They are wholly grotesque and love to engage in deadly acts of malice. Their only weakness is light. A genuinely terrifying moment was when they overpower and wound one of the workers so bad that he had to go to the hospital. They truly exist as the darker inverse of the fairies of pop culture.
I do want to give praise for Madison’s portrayal as Sally. She provides an excellent performance as a child whose parents do not believe her being tormented by monsters. del Toro’s projects have an excellent track record with fantastic child leads, and this film is no exception. She is tasked with carrying the film, and she does it well. Compared to other horror films with child leads, she and this movie stand above the pack.
Overall I immensely enjoyed Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. I hope the director Troy Nixey gets another shot in the future. It is an excellent film that more people should check out. If you love dark fantasy, gothic, and horror, then this will be right up your alley. The ending is heartbreaking and ties a perfect bow around the movie.
For my next post, I will be writing about another debut horror film produced by del Toro. Feel free to share and make sure to follow the blog on Instagram @brantlewiswrites for updates.
