Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Atmospheric made-for-tv horror film.

Better-than-usual TV horror. Creepy makeup and an eerie setting (with nice atmosphere provided by Newland) make this a very watchable little shocker with a truly unexpected ending.

A pretty good made-for-TV terror effort that's easily stolen by the lilliputian predators and has won its fair share of fans.

Creepy, unsettling horror film uses its limited budget and fairly crude makeup effects to its advantage, giving limited and shadowy screen time to its monsters, and allowing Newland's atmospheric direction to carry most of the load; an effectively brittle performance from Darby also helps. Feels a little truncated, with a rushed anticlimactic ending, but overall a terrific piece of horror cinema, transcending its made-for-TV roots.

Almost seems incomplete, but I thought it was pretty creepy.

Don't be afraid of the dark...be afraid of the remake.

Não tenha medo da escuridão estreava há 50 anos nos EUA. Sorry Del Toro, mas quando vi os elfos domésticos só consegui dar risada. Mas deve ser muito bom pra crianças mesmo. Box Versátil Obras-primas do Terror volume 16.

Easy to see why this made such an impact on young tv viewers in the early 70's and became a fondly remembered cult hit: the creature designs are memorable (& perfectly creepy to a young viewer) & the ending is extremely unexpected for a tv movie at that time. None of this means any of this would hold up to a modern adult viewer's eyes & I was ready to give it a lower ranking, but unlike most 70's tv movies, this is remarkably quick: next to no padding & the ending arrives well before I expected.

I think everyone my age has seen this movie, and of that set I'm the only one who doesn't like it at all. If you ask me, it's just not at all scary... and it has that perpetual boxed-in and cheesy feel of so many made-for-television movies that's the reason I refused to see *anything* made for the small screen for years