The Dark (2005)
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.45 You Save: $11.54 (77%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of The Dark (2005)
Movie Review: What 'Ring 2' Should Have Been....
Summary: 4 Stars
Fans of the Ring and the Grudge will find plenty to like here. Compelling story, excellent acting and directing. I found the story to be original and the ending surprising. Certainly better than most movies I have seen recently (ie:Hostel). A true Horror film in every way.Movie Review: Good, and freaky sheep
Summary: 3 Stars
In recent years, this new chick flick styled horror has sprung up. The Grudge, The Ring, Darkness, and The Dark. This 2005 British production adds a few new twists to the genre, but doesn't take the next step in standing out amid such similar films.
After separating from her artist husband James (Sean Bean), Adelle (Maria Bello) travels to Wales with daughter Sarah (Sophie Stuckey) for a visit. Things have been tough between the ladies, but the Welsh countryside seems good for the reuniting family. The area is full of mysterious buildings, cult legends, and lovely beaches and cliffs. Unfortunately, Sarah vanishes on the beach. While James and local handyman Dafydd (Maurice Roeves) lead a massive search, Adelle discovers a strange girl named Ebril (Abigail Stone) now living in their home.
Okay, so the chick flick horror genre really began with Jamie Lee Curtis and Halloween, but this recent trend of chick horror always has the same key pieces: An American woman in a foreign country with a child somehow involved in said horror. The Dark brings a nice twist with its Welsh mythology, but there isn't much time invested in this notion. Two scenes of the staple `talking to the old person who was there' and the standard `lost journal/internet/microfilm' montage set the intrigue but doesn't take what makes The Dark unique far enough.
Maria Bello (A History of Violence, ER) is finely cast as the not so perfect mother on a quest to find her missing daughter. She's the right style; a bit edgy, off her rocker, yet hip, blonde rocker chick. Bello does fine, and it's a strong role for what is odd to say an `older maternal' part as compared to a teeny sexy chick part. The Dark, however, is not going to make Maria Bello a movie star anytime soon. Nothing ill against her, but everyone does the foreign low budget horror flick at some point. The Dark isn't bad, just meh. Naomi Watts, Sarah Michelle Gellar, aren't they all the same?
Likewise I am curious why Sean Bean (The Lord of the Rings) took two so similar parts within a year. Silent Hill and The Dark are very much the same vein, and Bean plays the searching, protective father in both. Odd that he has come down to independent horror features after such success with The Fellowship of the Ring. However, after seeing him in so many villainous roles, it is nice to see the softer side of Bean. (My husband kept suspecting he was someone involved in the evil!) Still, I can't help but chuckle during his scenes with Sophie Stuckey and Abigail Stone. Do these little girls know who he is? Were they afraid of him? Don't they say to never work with kids or dogs?
There is no question, however, about the lovely locations in The Dark. The stunningly beautiful yet violent and creepy cliffs and oceans onscreen add to the parental fear of the leads. My goodness how do British people really live so close to these cliffs without fearing their kids are going to plummet? This realistic filming adds to the creepiness of the abattoir. Based upon the novel Sheep by Simon Maginn, the animals are also a bit freaky; Herds of sheep surrounding folks, looking at people and baa-ing. The Dark shows promise with these foreign and weird touches, but it's not enough.
I suppose the biggest question is this: Is The Dark scary? First viewing; maybe. Bean and Bello fans will tune in for sure, but those made to jump moments are now so commonplace that the spooks don't work. Television Director John Fawcett's (Xena, Queer as Folk, Taken) jagged abattoir flashbacks, cliff plummets, and otherworldly Annwn hell-like filming make great strides and look very cool, but don't top what's already been done onscreen.
Outside of a few f-bombs, I don't see why The Dark is rated R. The child torture scenes are mild compared to other films, and the blood and gore isn't heavy. Maybe European audiences prefer the parental struggles and life versus death debates, but us Americans want Blood! Gore! Sex! And we want it Now!
The Dark does nothing wrong, in fact its foreign and mature takes add to the film, not detract. The Dark is good. I've watched it several times, I'd watch it again, and I recommended The Dark to my horror loving husband. Too many similar films and not enough umph unfortunately give The Dark a feeling of déjà vu and familiarity instead of nail biting horror.
Although the dvd only offers one extra-an alternate ending that isn't too shocking-if you're looking for a bit of weird and creepy, The Dark is an affordable show without too much commitment.
Movie Review: Fright and Flight: A Seasonal Mystery
Summary: 3 Stars
THE DARK is a beautifully photographed brochure for Wales. And as far as the rather silly content goes, it is a better than average Halloween season tidbit. Despite some good ideas dealing with old Welsh mythology, the plot wears thin and spends most of the film's time in dark and tiresome explorations of dank rooms in a cottage by the sea. The sea is the main character and serves the movie well.
Adapted from the novel 'Sheep' by Simon Maginn, the squeaky screenplay by Stephen Massicotte has a very simple plot idea dealing with a legend that in Wales a dead person enters a purgatory-like place called Annwyn, a mythological place humans can enter spiritually or corporeally, and can be redeemed by the sacrifice of a living being willing to die as the payment for the return of the dead person. Darkly secret veiled Adèle (Maria Bello) and her troubled daughter Sarah (Sophie Stuckey) visit husband/father James (Sean Bean) who has followed his loner dream and escaped to Wales, living in an old haunted house where once dwelled the Shepherd, a leader or a religious sect not unlike the Jamestown group. Knowing that the sect jumped of the nearby cliff so that the Shepherd's daughter could be restored, the current action mimics the past and to reveal which characters are involved in which way would be detrimental to the viewer, depriving what little surprises there are in this overlong film.
John Fawcett directs a strong cast who are required little range of emotion. But oh, the scenery! The tale is different enough to place it a few bars above the usual Halloween fare (there is sufficient gore to satisfy the seasonal need!), but the painterly Welsh coastline is well worth the rental dime. Grady Harp, October 07
Movie Review: Decent movie, but doesn't reach its full potential
Summary: 3 Stars
Apparently, the reviews on here are either best movie ever, or "bad bad bad movie." Very descriptive.
Here's the rundown; the movie starts on an interesting and original premise -- how many movies can you think of based on ancient Welsh myth? Unfortunately, the old myths and the cult religion in the movie aren't explored in any real depth, such as in, say, the original Wicker Man. Instead, the movie makers only use this potentially interesting subject as an excuse for another ghost-girl "suspense thriller."
Another weak point is the ending -- its not very clear. Many people seem to think they know what the ending was, yet practically everyone has a different idea of what exactly happened. If you want a sampling, look at the discussion boards for this film on the Internet Movie Database; there are a plethora of varying theories on what happens in the end, and a great deal of people express their lack of understanding and frustration. This is not a good, thought-provoking ending, but a poorly constructed ending that leaves many loose ends. It seems that the creators had an intriguing idea, but didn't really know exactly how to play it out, so they just left it muddled and unexplained.
The production values are very good, although the movie is visually quite similar to the Ring -- the same lighting, the same kind of gray color tone to everything, the same kind of editing, and so on. Also, it relies on several cheap jump-scares, but other than that its not a particularly frightening film.
Ultimately, this is a decent quality movie, but a shallow story that really doesn't differ much from all the other suspense horror movies out right now.
Movie Review: Yes, it IS dark...maybe a little too dark
Summary: 3 Stars
Poor Sean Bean: a great actor, he has been cast as a worried father in two recent films -- 'The Dark' and 'Silent Hill' -- that don't give him much to do except try to deal with an obsessive mother and a tragic child. At least 'The Dark' has great scenery! The plot is pretty standard (and very much like the aforementioned 'Silent Hill'): an American mother brings her daughter to Wales to visit her father, an artist, who lives in suitably remote and rather creepy cottage. Maria Bello's Adele is not the most sympathetic mother; in flashbacks, she's not the best caretaker for her child, and we see that the Welsh trip is an attempt for a "second chance" with her daughter. Of course, in the dark upper story of the cottage, there's a secret, and, like many films of this kind ('The Ring' is another good example), the mother's devotion to saving her child takes her into what appears to be madness. At times, the film is literally so 'dark', it's hard to tell what's happening; I like creepy, but when you have to rewind a scene to try to see it clearly, that destroys the suspense. There is, of course, the requisite twist at the end (who's really alive, good, come back from the dead, etc), and at least Sean Bean has a little more to do here than in 'Silent Hill'! I also liked the killer sheep, which is something you just don't see in most horror films...