Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Who is the target audience for this lame film? It's too boring for kids, it's too lazy and predictable for adults, and it's too shitty for cynical alcholic nerds like myself. What a waste of money. Funny how the people who made this thought it was a good idea to have miniature hunchbacked CGI kobolds as the villains. Idiots.

It's like "*batteries not included" except the robots are fairies. No. That doesn't sell it. Hold on. It's like a less racist version of "The Indian in the Cupboard." Better, but not the pitch I want. How about: From the writer of "*batteries not included." Whoops. I'm going backwards here. Starring Tom Cruise's former beard. Oh, man. Uh. Guillermo! Guillermo's involved! There we go. Whew.

1: You do not...DO NOT, base a horror film on the tooth fairy myth. 2: Rats in the cellar are not that scary. In fact this is fundamentally un-scary. This is what I would expect from the third installment of a bad 90s B-horror franchise, only without the tounge-in-cheek approach but with a bigger budget. Guillermo del Toro needs to take a good, long, hard look in the mirror and ask himself: "Am I lending my name and reputation to the right kind of movies, these days?".

This was neither good nor scary and one of the biggest disappointments in recent horror film history. The 'monsters' of the film were some of the least scary villains I have ever seen. I had mice in my house last year that were more terrifying than those little gnome fairy things.

Lame story. Some cool atmosphere. Not worth the time to view it.

The little girl (Bailee Madison) is very good, and it is set in a cool creepy old mansion, but that's about all. The camera-flash bit (to keep the pixies at bay) was old in '72 when the original TV movie stole it from "Rear Window," and it looks even worse today. I expected more from the creator of "Pan's Labyrinth."

The real terror here appears to be that a faulty boiler is releasing enough Carbon Monoxide into the house for everyone's IQ to drop by 15 points.

What were they thinking, everyone who is affiliated with the production of this vile piece of stinking trash!? If a horror turns into a cute comedy you know shit just hit the fan. Everything... Literally everything about this flick is done badly. Now THAT my fellow Critickers, deserves every Razzie of 2012.

Just terrible. Bursting at the seams with horror film cliches. And the monsters are lame.

All-around bland movie. Nothing stands out and the acting ranges from okay to sub-par (Holmes). The monsters start off creepy but eventually lose all scariness due to their size, attitude and their inability to do anything ever. Go watch Gremlins or The Gate instead of this because it doesn't do anything new and ends up being a boring timewaster.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a bad horror movie. It's a complete waste of time from start to finish, lacks scares in every scene, and doesn't use any of the small amount of atmosphere it manages to build. The lead actor, the youngest, was actually the best, and it makes sense that Madison seems to appear in a boatload of films nowadays. She's good here, and if the film around her was just as strong, it might have been worth watching. It's a dull movie that you had might as well just forget.

Not a horror fan but this is particularly dull and predictable. Except for the stepmother trope being undone, there's nothing interesting about the adult characters or noteworthy about this tale of small creatures that - solely for the screenwriter's purpose of creating some tension (i.e. killing time till the climax) - take their sweet time killing their target child or adults who get in their way- even when they're unconscious. If the filmmakers hadn't been kids in 73, this wouldn't be remade.

Reading Guillermo del Toro in the beginning, I expected way more. This is mediocre, some scenes reminded me of Pan's Labyrinth - like when the girl looks around in the garden. Too bad this movie misses all of the magical feel and look of that film. In the end, it's just a substandard pseudo horror movie that takes itself too serious. It clearly goes downhill once you see those "monsters"...

Beautiful but disappointing...

Characters are often kinda stupid and it does bother you. Otherwise it seems like a lot of wasted potential, though it does have some pretty nice creepy moments.

Initially eerie atmospherics gradually peters out into a generic horror dud. The trailer was a thousand times scarier.

I am not afraid of the dark. But Guillermo Del Toro would like to change that.

I cannot help but think if GDT had directed this himself it might have gone better. As it is, he did not, and it suffers. The creatures really aren't that scary (anything that relies on sheer numbers rarely is) and even Guy Pearce (one of my favs) can't bring this above middling.

A good Lovecraftian horror story...Decent enough

I liked the ghostly grim house, and I liked the animated creatures. They worked fine. But practically nothing else did not. The idea was funny and the director did not have skills to get anything scary out of it. The plot did not work, a kid was nothing special (except looked like an old woman), and the end was ridiculous.

I liked a lot of things about this film but it also had some really corny parts. A remake of the 1973 film, Troy Nixey teamed up with Guillermo del Toro to flesh out this story about evil little faeries that like to eat people's teeth. I thought the little girl in this was adorable and looked like a young Snow White. Guy Pearce and Katie Holmes earn the worst parents of the year award for this. This did have one really good scare and had sick violence to earn it's rated R. It's passable.

The lensing and the art direction are pretty terrific, but the rest of it is forgettable, silly and somewhat annoying.

It has some Guillermo touches, and is bookended by some pretty great brutality. But unfortunately, it's not scary in the middle and it has a hard time setting a consistent tone, oscillating between a children's dark fantasy and an actual horror movie. Plus it's a well known fact that no movie featuring any sort of tooth fairy is any good.

The previews would have you believe that this movie is scary as hell, as would the title, but it fails to mention that the creatures here are fairies, and fairies are hardly scary, even if they look ugly.

I dont understand all the bad scores honestly. I'm quite sick of nondescript behind the scenes bad guys in horror movies (ghosts, demons for exorcisms, people with masks). It's nice for once to have a tangible living force of creatures for the characters and the audience to see. not to mention its not another evil child movie. for my money, I got what I wanted. some creepy guillermo creatures and a decent story to accompany them.

PEOPLE, STOP MAKING MOVIES ABOUT EVIL TOOTH FAIRIES, IT IS NOT FUCKING SCARY! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED DEL TORO!

The shoe-horning of Machen and Blackwood fantasy/horror into Hollywood rich, broken marriage family drama, awfully boring. [df]

B-

I'm okay with this. Visually, it's very lovely and fleshed-out for the most part. Honestly, could have done without the CGI "Gremlins" rip-offs, I think it would have gone over much better had they been a "faceless unseen fear" sort of thing. But, they decided on CGI gremlins, so, there you have it. This movie is a moving poster for bad parenting; I dunno if they were going for that or it was just poorly-written characters. Katie and Guy do enough, while Bailee is creepy as fuck. It's passable.

frustraitingly stupid human behavior - some nice styling though

Don't be afraid of the dark, just be afraid of having to sit through this movie.

I don't know. Paranormal Activity bored the hell out of me. This was rather enjoyable.

Bog standard Hollywood horror fare. CGI creatures & irrational behavior abound.

useless, stupid

56.500

A very bland feeling movie that I had a hard time getting into. But the only thing that really got me to like it a little bit was the last death of the movie. I thought that was the right ending for this movie, as disappointing as it was.

At times its great, but Don't Be Afraid of the Dark suffers from many directorial and writing flaws that ultimately stunt what could have been a great horror film into a mediocre, confusing and at times laughable venture into darkness.

It's like Mama, but way better.

I actually liked the premise and the monsters (even if they are totally squish-able), but I couldn't stand any of the characters, especially Pearce, what a tool.

"Pity that the mythology of the homunculi's existence is as arbitrary as the story's lazy, asinine plotting." - Ed Gonzalez

Not bad.

You don't have to be afraid of the dark but you should fear bad endings. This movie has a great premise and the first two thirds are well made but the ridicules ending ruins the film. The performance by Bailee Madison is excellent, it is a shame they did not give the script a rewrite. Overall this film is disappointing.

The atmosphere was pretty good and the brutal sections rang incredibly strong. Overall, a bit better than okay.

crap

I think I like the premise and lore behind this more than the execution. The creatures aren't really scary, but they looked pretty cool and I was fine with them. Acting isn't bad but there isn't a lot to flesh out here, as tragic as the ending is. If GDT has directed this, it may have been way creepier. Alas, it's just okay.

Creepy premise, horribly executed.

An interesting film about basement dwelling "goblins" and the typical disinterest in listening to a child. The premise is chilling and the acting is well done, though the lack of tense horror as well as the use of "out-of-sight" violence makes this film less than what it could have been.

A very spooky and clever movie with some terrifying creatures and memorable scenes that make it another impressive del Toro picture!

Pretty decent the first half hour or so, but after the little demons show up, it all goes down hill.

Visually pretty handsome and the story's much more fleshed out than the TV movie, but I thought it was less creepy and just an all around disappointment. The opening scene was a promising start, but the film just isn't scary. In fact, I thought the little creatures were kind of cute when they weren't busy slashing at people with razors and scissor blades.

Enjoyable, but not the minor classic that the original is.