Darkness Falls

Plot synopsis:
In 1827, a small group of people settled around a bay; among them was a newlywed couple, Sonny and Matilda Dixon. The town soon began to grow due to its quickly developing fishing industry. Local stores began to spring up, and people started to cultivate the land.However, in 1836, tragedy struck the small town, now called Darkness Falls, when Sonny Dixon was killed in a fishing accident, leaving his wife Matilda a widow. After her husband's death, Matilda became very close to the town's children. She would tell them stories, and give them gifts and gold coins when they lost a tooth, thus earning the nickname "Tooth Fairy".After a fire in her home left her horribly scarred, disfigured, and with an extreme sensitivity to light, she wore teeth-mask (which was made out of teeth), and only went out at night.One night, two of the town's young boys went missing, and they quickly blame Matilda. She was arrested, stripped of her mask, and hanged. Soon afterwards, the two missing boys returned home unharmed, and the town realized its grave mistake. A massive cover-up of the murder soon followed, and Matilda's body was buried.A year later, the first of many strange occurrences began. In 1842, the supply of whales and seals vanished from the sea; only their bones were left on East Beach. Freak storms began to terrorize the town and frequently resulted in the sinking of fishing boats. The two children who Matilda was accused of kidnapping vanished after leaving a suicide note at the town's lighthouse; their bodies were never found.Nearly 10 years later, the local cemetery was moved to make way for local expansion. During the move, Matilda's body disappeared and was never seen again. Since then, children have mysteriously disappeared from Darkness Falls, never to be seen again. Some claimed that they ran away, while others believed it was yet another chapter of the Tooth Fairy's curse.And so, the story of the Tooth Fairy was born. The vengeful spirit of Matilda Dixon would visit the home of children in Darkness Falls the night they lost their last baby tooth. If the child laid eyes on her, she would whisk them off and murder them. Her weakness in life remained with her in death; she had an extreme sensitivity to light.One boy, Kyle Walsh, learns that the story is more than just a story the night he loses his last baby tooth. He finds it hard to fall asleep after hearing stories of Matilda, and takes a flashlight to bed with him. As he tries to sleep, he hears a raspy breath over his bed, and dares to open his eyes. He sees the masked face of Matilda herself. Frightened, Kyle shines the flashlight into her eyes, causing her to recoil in pain. He runs out of his room to his mother, who assures him that there is nothing to be afraid of. As Kyle's mother goes to investigate, she sees Matilda for herself, and is brutally murdered by the angry spirit. Kyle, hearing his mother's death, hides in the bathroom with the lights on, preventing Matilda from reaching him. The next morning, the police show up and believe that Kyle has murdered his mother. They arrest him and take him away.Years later, Kyle has left Darkness Falls and moved to Las Vegas - a city where the lights never turn off. He always carries a bag of flashlights and lanterns with him in fear of Matilda finishing what was started many years before. One day, an old childhood friend, Caitlin Greene, calls to ask for his help with her younger brother, Michael, who also seems to have survived an encounter with the Tooth Fairy. Michael, like Kyle, now has a gripping fear of the dark, and is thought to have gone insane. Kyle returns, knowing that Michael is not crazy, and tries to help him. Since two people have now escaped from Matildas wrath, it has caused her to become more active; revealing herself to dozens of people, and killing them all in her quest to get Kyle and Michael.Kyle, Michael, and Caitlin now must escape from Darkness Falls while avoiding the darkness until morning, just as one of the freak storms knocks out all the lights in the town.Soon the storm hits the village with a loud bang and wallop and almost every light in the village is turned out. The last remaining light is only that of the Light House situated at the far coast of the village. A fight ensues between Kyle and Matilda, and he manages to knock her mask away from her face - revealing the scarred flesh. They then illuminate the Lighthouse's lantern and throw Matilda in to it, where she ignites and turns in to a ball of flame and is thrown off the balcony. As she catches fire her spirit is destroyed forever.(Source: WikiPedia)

Tags: revenge, fantasy, dark, murder, flashback

Review:
My husband is a pretty stoic guy, and because I love and have seen so many horror movies at this point, I'm afraid I'm a little jaded, and have frequently been disappointed when it comes to horror movies that have come out past 1983."Darkness Falls" delivered the goods.
The sets, lighting and sound effects were so creepy it made my skin crawl.Certainly better fare than some other pathetic excuses for horror movies that rely solely on special effects for creep..
Kyle Walsh (Chaney Kley) returns to the small town of Darkness Falls to help his childhood girlfriend, Caitlin Greene (Emma Caulfield), whose brother is hospitalized with severe night terrors.
Since I'm a big Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan, that might have supplied Emma Caulfield with some unconscious bonus points, but I loved her acting here.What really matters in a film like this is the horror material, and director Jonathan Liebesman handles it skillfully.
These types of scenes were handled well enough to make me either forget or not care if there were any rules broken when it comes to keeping the villain at bay.Although I'm not someone who finds films scary, I can see Darkness Falls working for many viewers in terms of frights.
This spirit takes her revenge on the children of the town after they lose the last of their baby teeth.An acceptable horror movie full of thrills , chills , and shocks starred by an ancient Tooth Fairy gone amok.
Years later, and still haunted by the experience of that night, Kyle must return to Darkness Falls to aid his childhood sweetheart Caitlin Greene (Emma Caulfield) and her kid brother Michael-who seems to be at risk from the Tooth Fairy this time around.
Can Kyle confront his fears and end the 150 years of terror that has blighted Darkness Falls?Pretty much despised by the discerning horror-phile, Darkness Falls, to me at least, is a creepy, interesting and totally enjoyable thriller/ghost picture worth reappraisals.
Hand on my heart I know the film isn't a scary boo jump picture, something that is unforgivable to many genre supporters, but atmosphere goes a long way to creating a good thriller/ghost story picture.
Up front: I've just read other IMDb members' reviews of Darkness Falls, and if this isn't just the darndest case of "I-must-have-been-watching-a-different-movie" that I've come across!
The following is clearly a VERY brief minority report.Decent acting, good story flow, nice special effects for the budget, honest scares, fine gore-avoidance, entertaining mood-setting opening credits, and cliches up the whazoo.
Darkness Falls follows a somewhat similar plot line as the previous year's entry in the genre,They,with a few differences.One,Darkness Falls has a fairly well fleshed out back story.Two,the acting is generally fairly good.three,the monster has a reason for being,a motivation for its actions.also,the monster has a weakness,which can be exploited.the core storyline is descent for this genre.the movie is better paced and much better edited.the monster itself is however,not so great.the look of the creature isn't the problem.the problem are its movements,which do not look authentic in some scenes.now,the characters themselves--very little in the form of character development.pretty much your stock horror characters.none too bright and reacting in ways which real people(hopefully)would not.yet,strangely likable somehow.you kind of take pity on them.suspense--there were some tense moments.there was a fair amount of action.however,at times the film became chaotic--lots of sounds and sights all at once,including the music.the purpose,to pretend to entertain the viewer,well hiding the movie's shortcomings.in essence disguising the fact that the movie isn't achieving its intended purpose.in this case,frightening the viewer or at least heightening his or her anxiety.and now the ending.it does nicely resolve things.no cheap setup for a sequel here.i think it's a better movie than They.is it a good movie?yes.it has some tense moments with a few decent action sequences and a decent,straightforward ending without the usual unexpected(but really expected))twist.for me,Darkness Falls is a 6.5/10.
The atmosphere is non-existent, the premise really isn't very promising, and the execution is even more lackluster.The film has a very simple premise: old lady killed over a hundred years ago is now a restless spirit who goes around murdering children who've lost their first tooth (they also have to see her face first, or something like that, not like the movie was holding my attention).
Anyway, after the film dispenses with TWO prologues which takes up nearly fourteen minutes of running time, we settle with our protagonist, Kyle Walsh (Chaney Kley), who encountered this evil tooth fairy as a child and wants to help his former girlfriend's (Emma Caulfield) younger brother through the same ordeal.
This is obviously a movie that doesn't have much in the way of plot, but you probably figured that when you saw the town's name was Darkness Falls (groan).
Darkness Falls doesn't have the look and feel of a horror/thriller, it certainly doesn't have enough plot (and what story it has is peppered with plot holes)(you'd think a town this cursed would have almost a minute population, but it's a rather bustling little place), and the acting is subpar.
Director Jonathan Liebesman seems perfectly content with trying to give us boo scares (which aren't the slightest bit effective), loud noises, lots of fast camera movements, and lots of running and chasing.Running and chasing is exactly what fills up the movie's last twenty minutes, when it suddenly opts for thrill ride mode, but even that is as completely unengaging as all the material that came before it.
I was able to overcome the rather silly premise of the tooth fairy being an evil character, but I couldn't forgive the complete destruction of any suspense that had been built up in the first half of the movie..
My husband and I saw Darkness Falls this weekend and absolutely loved it and my husband doesn't even like horror movies but he loved this one.
The pacing, the look, the blandness of both films, and the awful script, are very similar in quality.But the thing that's really disappointing is that the idea of an evil tooth fairy is actually cool.
We get another kid who tries to talk like an adult (most notably in his wishes for the Tooth Fairy to just get him rather than running away forever), and the rest of the cast is forgettable at best.Scares in this movie are nonexistant.
First time director Jonathan Liebesman shows potential with a strong visual style and a great dark atmosphere but the completely unimaginative, flawed script drags things down.
Once the creature (If you can call it that) shows up it looks pretty damn grotesque but like the rest of the film it's unimaginative (Surprising considering it comes from Stan Winston studios).A flawed, paint-by-numbers horror film that offers nothing new or fresh despite a decent monster, and muscular direction from Liebesman.3.5/10..
Darkness falls is a good horror film.
It is about the curse of an old lady on a town called Darkness falls in revenge for the town putting her to death for a crime she doesn't commit,in which she attacks kids on the night when they lose their first tooth.The rock song 'look out below' by Closure is noteworthy.Special effects are nice.Some thrills are scary.I wouldn't say it's the scariest movie ever made or anything like that.
The main character says the same phrase more then ten times witch shows that this movie has a really bad and predictable story tough it is better than some other movies of the kind like Jason X.
After seeing such cool horror flicks like "The Ring" and "28 Days Later", this movie was laughable at best.
Like A Fine Wine It Gets Better With Age. Darkness Falls is one and was one of those rare horror movies where all the pieces came together,the director,the crew and the performances by the actors,it simply is a rare example of a what I would consider one of the best and further more you certainly don't get many as good these days.
The legend of The Tooth Fairy is taken to a whole new level with Darkness Falls and Darkness Falls is best watched with the lights out and the volume turned up,the magic of this picture is as you would expect,you think you know what is about to happen next and then it doesn't,then again it does but when you least expect it..brilliant.
Its a shame that in todays horror genre that script writers cant come up with storys as downright spooky as this anymore,much like some of the classics that came aboard during the 80s Darkness Falls certainly falls into those gems category.
I like horror movies I tell myself but then I remember Feardotcom and Jeepers Creepers 2 and I start to fear that Darkness Falls will be as bad as they were.
The 'stay in the light' rule was fantastic just as well used here as in the season 1 X file episode, again titled, 'Darkness Falls'.My only real problem with the film is the ending.
Emma Caufield is pretty good, the action scenes or decently staged but the story is severely lacking and the tooth fairy despite the opening scene is just not scary.
DARKNESS FALLS in my opinion was a good horror movie and if I were to rate it on the traditional Hollywood four star system, I would award it at least two (2) stars which means, fair, or, worth a look.
The story and plot for Darkness Falls were great, but not represented well in the film.
It made me think, "Hey this film seems like it might be pretty good." One element that bothered me was the fact that they showed the Ghost too many times.
I was beginning to like it, but then it turned into modern day crap.The idea that this monster can't do in ANY light at all, and the fact that it can't attack you unless you have seen it's face, and once you have seen it's face, you can never be in the dark again without it killing you, is a novel and cool idea to me, and it seemed that they were going to make a disturbing film out of it.But they simply went too many times for the cheapest of all horror scares: the jump scare.
Stan Winston's puppet in the final sequence was so realistically believeable that I acutally thought it was a person with make-up prosthetics on, until I watched the 'making of' featurette on the DVD.Darkness Falls is one of those films you should avoid, unless you like movies that turn out really bad at the end..
okay.no one expects horror movies to have great acting, so I do not understand why so many people are dissappointed in this film.the use of Surround sound and the noise of the evil creature FREAKED OUT the audience.it was just like going to a mid sized amusement park roller coaster.
The logic of the storyline comes and goes as eventualy the tooth fairy causes a power outage in the town (seems it doesnt like light!) and starts reducing the population pretty quickly.
But, the tooth fairy is bad, she apparently only goes after a few kids at a time, wears a god-awful mask, and must have some severe respiratory problems because of all of the scary gurgling sounds she makes when she's near.Bottom line, don't rent this movie..
Uneven, dumb, laughable, with not a solitary original idea (but for the dead body gag) Basing ANY horror flick on the concept of an airborne Jason Voorhees in skirts is asking for trouble...without even the dubious touch of having children threatened by a feral tooth fairy?There were audible groans in the theater at the umpteenth pronouncement by Chaney Kley for everyone to "Stay in the light!" The general consensus by then anyway, was - lets hear it for Matilda!" Kley looked for the most part like he was doing a Pierce Brosnan take-off and it was open-slather on the "I see dead people" set, with Lee Cormie leaning at various times towards either Haley Joel Osmont or one of the Culkins!
This is a brilliant film, this is one of those film that really show why some people were scare of the dark as a young kid & why some time the fear of the dark goes to adulthood this is one example of a film that shows that.Inspired by the real dark fairy tale of the tooth fairy from brother grim story's & an age old story of waltzing Matilda known as the tooth fairy who's husband died at sea which gave us the famous song waltzing Matilda a famous Australian song.This story take you in to the heart of the darkness & your inner fears to truly terrify you to the bone.On the DVD is has a true history back ground story of waltzing Matilda which is a pretty sad story but a frightening back ground story for her, but this film is one of the best horror film's I've seen in a while.
The tooth fairy is seldom seen throughout the film, the sequences involving the supernatural character are heavily edited with very flashy, quick cuts that allow us to see little of her - although when we do, the special effects aren't too bad.
Again, the film relies a lot on jump scares, but there is some already-scary material that lies within the story, so it's a little spooky to begin with.Overall, "Darkness Falls" is your typical modern ghost film, and is very flawed in some accounts, but it has it's moments and at least tried to be something fairly original for the genre.
This movie goes very wrong, very fast, after the opening and it starts with the main character, this person could not act to save his life and it didn't help the film to get other actors who are as entertaining as a piece of wood floating down a river.
I've seen better stuff done in direct to video titles.The tooth fairy is one of the worst horror movie monsters to come to screen and I wish that the mystery behind this creature could have been more mysterious.
i can't say i've seen a scary horror movie in a long time, because scares lately rely completely on shock value.parts of movies that i can think of offhand right now that were really scary are like the first part of jeepers creepers, and the first part of house on haunted hill.
and so did a few IQs. A promising start (lasting about 2 minutes) rapidly deteriorates into an experience that's about as scary as watching a five-year-old running around under a sheet going "Woooooh!"It's not shoddy special effects, wooden acting or derivative, predictable, implausible plots that we horror fans mind - it's having our intelligence insulted.
More bad luck befell the woman when two local children went missing: the townsfolk blamed her for the disappearances and hanged her, but not before she cursed them for their actions (she was right to be miffed: the kids turned up alive soon after she was strung up!).Now, as legend has it, youngsters who lose their last baby tooth are paid a visit by the vengeful spirit of the woman, who whisks the child away should they see her, which doesn't seem very fair since the kids had nothing to do with her death - but then little about this film makes sense.When Kyle loses his last tooth, he can't help but take a peek at the 'tooth fairy', as Matilda is known by the locals, and as a result his mother is killed (thereby subverting the rules of the legend).
If the people of Darkness Falls have been disappearing or mysteriously turning up dead for the past century and a half, why would anyone doubt Kyle when he claims the tooth fairy killed his mum?
i'm OK with 75 minute running time,that was the norm for old school horror films..i'm OK with the plot holes,it IS a grade b flick,but i hate the laziness of the clichéd police who get a kick out of tormenting people who they believe to be disturbed(weak stereotype)and the equally careless casting of a much older actor to play what is supposed to be the 22 year old lead--had promise,but didn't deliver.some example of films that dealt with young actors and small town locations are LADY IN WHITE,CLOWNHOUSE and SILVER BULLET,all of which delivered realistic performers and realistic characters while maintainig a scary atmosphere..they had small budgets,but delivered big.
Worst films of 2003:Bad Boys 2, Dominoes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, House of 1,000 Corpses, Ken Park, Bad Guy, DARKNESS FALLS.Maybe it's time to stop making horror movies..
Maybe they can remake it sometime, because the idea of a tooth fairy who kills people in a movie is pretty good.
An old lady comes back to seek vengeance based upon the tooth fairy....Avoid this movie like SARS.
I seriously couldn't sleep in the dark that night!All in all, despite the weak plot line and average acting, this movie was pretty good, and made me jump when I least expected it.I give it a 6..
One of the reason i bought this film is because its horror (i love scary movies).
I would give this movie 8 out of 10, for being scary, jumpy, not too much gore (like most horrors today).
I didn't go in expecting a great little horror film like "The Ring" but went in with a open mind looking for a bit of escapism fun.
Darkness Falls looks as if at one time there was a strong movie there.
"Darkness Falls" has more faults than things to recommend it, but if you like the horror genre, and you'll put up with anything, it has it's moments.
Darkness Falls was rated PG-13, and for a horror film that's usually a very good clue that it is going to appeal more to the 13 or younger population..
It has to be seen two times to get the full conscept.Darkness Falls is one of the couple thriller movies out there that are worth seeing.