Darkness
Tags: gothic, murder, stupid, cult, horror, good versus evil, insanity

Plot synopsis:
Theres something in this house... Something ancient and dark that remains still, hidden and silent. It can only wait, having been concealed in the shadows for years. In fact, its milieu is darkness. Only in it can it show itself and move. It even takes its name: DARKNESS. Its lived here since someone tried to call it, more than forty years ago. Because this house hides a secret, a terrible past, an inconceivably evil act Seven children, faceless people, a circle that must be completed. And blood, lots of blood But something went wrong. One of the children got away. The circle wasnt completed. Thats why what lives here isnt finished. Its just waiting It tries to carry out what it couldnt before, making plans in the shadows, to become complete, to be, to exist A new family has just moved into the house. A small child. An unstable father capable of losing his temper at any time. A perfect target. The right place at the right time. The pieces only have to be put in place. And then wait...

Review: This movie is not your typical American horror flick (which makes sense since it's a Spanish film).
It's a far cry from the gory, cliché-ridden and painfully explained horror movies that American audiences are used to.Darkness disturbed me on different levels.
The lead actors - especially Anna Paquin, Lena Olin, and Giancarlo Gianinni - do stellar work, and the young boy who plays Paul could give Haley Joel Osment acting lessons.I found the movie suspenseful right from the beginning, never knew what was going to happen next, and thought throughout, "I don't know who to trust!" with my suspicions flying back & forth between the dad - someone presented to us a a father with a history of mental illness, the 'obvious'villain; his wife, played by Lena Olin, who has a built-in mistrust factor thanks to her chilling ice-in-her-veins portrayal of Sidney's mom on "Alias"; the grandfather, played smoothly and charmingly by Giancarlo Gianinni; and even the boy friend.This film was written and directed by an independent film-maker,and the combination of the suspenseful, tight script; the keen-edged performances by the actors; the director's use of editing within the camera, and using lighting, to achieve special effects;and his variable pacing, all contribute to make "Darkness" a worthy entry in the horror/suspense genre, and NOT AT ALL like the usual, big-budget American schlock.I highly recommend this film, available on DVD..
Iain Glen as Mark is absolutely superb, as are Lena Olin as Maria and Giancarlo Giannini as Albert Rua. I would recommend «Darkness» to anyone wanting to watch a good, unusual, and challenging film..
The movie centers about a family living outskirts Barcelona and the terrible events that happen to the daughter (Anna Paquin) and the rest of family : father (Iain Glenn) , mother (Lena Olin) and grandfather (Giancarlo Giannini).The motion picture gets a certain likeness to films as ¨Amytiville¨ saga and the recent ¨The others¨ and ¨The sixth sense¨ , the director Jaume Balaguero takes parts each other films .
The picture plot is pretty twisted and the final has an extraordinary surprise .Interpretation by Anna Paquin as scared adolescent is average , she's very young and lack her experience , better play her grandfather and parents : Giancarlo Giannini , Lena Olin and Iain Glenn , both of whom are riveting .
The filmmakers do a better job of portraying his work than most who try and do a straight forward presentation.I haven't seen the edited American release (and I probably don't want to) but the international version is a visual treat for any true fan of horror.
Darkness is a bad horror movie with a few scares and a lot of yawns.
I mean, some things that were made to look like a big part in the movie, then left alone were dumb, but the painting was really freaky, and there were lots of really tense scenes, like when Paul was in the bedroom by himself and when the father was getting pi$$ed and cutting the veggies really hard.
How many times can weird shadows appear in dark rooms, without even trying to mean anything?In other words, if you're not a "horror connoisseur", and just enjoy a good scare that does not necessarily have to be a piece of art, and don't mind a banal plothole-ridden outcome, then you're going to like this movie a lot.
In terms of its storyline, "Darkness" is pretty much like every other haunted house movie ever made.
They want to hang around to see what "happens." It is Oscar-winner Anna Paquin, as the moody but perceptive teenaged daughter of the clan, who gets to have her name above the title here - a dubious distinction at best, I'm sorry to say."Darkness" has just about all the standard accoutrement's one would expect to find in a film on this subject.
Almost unbearable!While watching this film for ten minutes, i wished an electricity blackout to happen at home just like in the movie.
What starts out as a passable movie degenerates into one of the most incoherent, UNscary, incompetently made, stupid attempted horror films of recent years.Absolutely terrible.
Surely not everyone is going to agree with me that Darkness is a 10, but if you have an appreciation for the visual aspects of cinematic art, you can't afford to pass up this film.After a brief prologue featuring a young boy talking to authorities about the mysterious abduction of some children, accompanied by a fast-cut montage, we jump 40 years into the future.
At the urging of Mark's (Iain Glen) father, Albert Rua (Giancarlo Giannini), Mark and Maria (Lena Olin) have moved their family back to Spain, where Mark was raised until his parents divorced and his mother took him to the U.S. They have two kids, college-aged Regina (Anna Paquin) and the much younger Paul (Stephan Enquist), who are having the expected difficulties adjusting, even though Regina's love of swimming is helping her quickly make friends, including a boyfriend, Carlos (Fele Martínez).
While the plot is complex, at least given the backstory, and Balagueró doesn't walk the viewer through the plot by the hand--you have to exercise that thing inside your noggin a bit--Darkness is nowhere near the non-linearity, surrealness or poetic ambiguity of many European and Asian horror films.
There are also a number of other references, including the "evil hallways" as seen in Asian films like Whispering Corridors (Yeogo goedam, 1998) and Dark Water (Honogurai mizu no soko kara, 2002), which probably got the same from The Shining (1980), which is also referenced here in different ways.
Spain continues with the revival of atmospheric, story-driven horror but this film is definitely a lot less impressive or memorable than for example "The Others", "The Devil's Backbone" or Balaguero's own "The Nameless".
It even steals the premise of The Believers but with less of an explanation of why things are happening.Oh and the acting....ugh, the dad, my God I thought he was the guy from those instant coffee commercials that were popular a few years ago and the mom is no better, she is always to tired to notice the lights turn on and off or that her son is being bruised when he sleeps or there the foot prints on the ceiling.This movie sucked..
Yes this is the best movies I had seen.I like like this movies.The question is why i liked there is too much but some of them is because in this film the young boy had a excellent actress without experience.And I liked because this movies is making too afraid when you are watching it.And he has a past this story and very very good story and this movie is make to believe people what was in the past like this things you have seen in this movie........bye to everyone and especially to young boy Stephan and hope to him good life and if he want to be actor he will be a good actor.His actress was perfectly in that movie...Don't be afraid :).
The mother is in denial that her family is going nuts, while the teenage daughter tries to persuade the family that there is something wrong the house and that they must leave it.Ordinarily, I love horror movies, even the kind with lousy special effects.
You'll probably like this film if you're easily scared by cheap jump shots, the occasional loud noise, and you suspend disbelief enough to ignore the plot holes, shocking acting, and the unpleasant semi-pederast themes..
It isn't an American horror movie.The ending is not spelled out at the beginning of the movie - you cannot use an actor's billing in the film to figure out who makes it and who doesn't - there aren't any silly long dialogues where everyone blurts out their plans and explanations for everything they are thinking.Though on the surface it seems like just another apocalyptic horror - the storyline is a bit more complex than it seems.This, especially to the average American moviegoer who is looking for a girl in vinyl pants and stiletto heels interacting poorly with a ton of computer graphics.
and people bouncing and flipping all over the place for no apparent reason other than showmanship in a time of crisis.What is there: suspense in place of CGI monsters, actors in place of models and 'musicians', storyline in place of "PARTY!", and the ending is fantastic in its "anything BUT a Hollywood ending" sort of finish - and definitely not something your typical "Dark Castle Entertainment" fan is going to be able to wrap their brain around (despite how incredibly head-slappingly simple it is)..
An american family (Iain Glen & Lena Olin) with a teenage daughter (Anna Paquin) & a little boy (Stepnah Enquist) moves into an old house somewhere in Spain, and soon enough find out that there's something wrong with it.
The visuals are good - a couple of scenes are pretty likely to haunt you days, maybe even months after watching the film.
Like with many horror films, the movie starts out strong with an intriguing storyline, only to have the writers throw together a flittery, half-witted explanation to everything.
While not in the league of Haley Joel Osment, I think he has a good future in film waiting for him if he chooses to pursue it.This is one movie that true Horror Lovers have got to see.
After the movie ended, people just sat there in silence "dazed and confused", probably wondering like myself, "What just happened?" My friend just looked at me and said, "We just lost our money, Dawg!!" It really takes a lot nowadays to classify a movie as a true Thriller/Horror flick and this movie did not even come close.
It is the least terrifying and most boring of all the horror films I've seen since the year 2000, and perhaps even earlier.The whole plot idea is just another version of The Shining with some Poltergeist stuff mixed in for good measure.
Only reason I gave it a 3 is 1 point for the cast, 1 for the cinematography, and 1 for the Spanish actor, that was in Pedro Almodovars recent "Bad Education" (the other main character, not Gael) Please do not waste your time, people need to stop trying to make it on bad PG-13 horror films.
It is interesting that not one shot of this movie actually looks like Spain and could have been entirely filmed in a studio back lot.
Anna Paquin is the only person that delivers a decent performance in the film but I hate Anna Paquin so you can imagine my own private hell viewing this film.There is one good moment in the movie, however, when a villain is trying to explain the convoluted plot to Anna Paquin's character and she doesn't understand any of it and asks a bunch of stupid questions and he blurts out "You IDIOT, you have not understood anything!" lol.
Judging by Anna Paquin's performance in this so not scary 'horror' movie you'd never believe she was an Oscar-winning actress.
Not long after Regina (Anna Paquin) begins living in her family's remote country estate, she learns that there's something horribly disturbing about the old place.Darkness has the hallmarks of a great film, it is suspenseful and creepy, the cast is very strong, the story is fresh and original and the direction is very stylish.
Sadly i found it fell short of greatness and i can only put it down to the pace of the delivery, to me it seemed to drag along at times without serving any real purpose.Darkness is still a good film and i simply loved the finale, it just could have been better.6/10.
Regina (Anna Paquin), the teenager daughter of Mark (Iain Glen), who is sick and has some mental problems, and the nurse Maria (Lena Olin), notes that weird things is happening in the house and with her young brother Paul (Stephan Enquist), but her mother does not believe on her.
Reggie decides to ask for support to her grandfather Albert (Giancarlo Giannini) to protect her brother against the house and her father.I bought this DVD expecting to see a good horror movie of haunted house mainly because of the names of Anna Paquin, Lena Olin, Fele Martínez (from "Thesis" and "Abre los Ojos") and Giancarlo Giannini.
The very best that can be said for it is that it's only 88 minutes long, but these are precious minutes that you will never get back, minutes during which you could be doing more enjoyable things such as driving knitting needles through your cheeks or administering suppositories to dysenteric pachyderms.The ultimate cosmic mystery is how anyone with any shred of taste or sanity could have read the script for this abomination and thought to themselves, "Oh, yes, let's make a movie!" The story could possibly make sense to some people -- say, Charles Manson on acid.
I was so excited to see this movie and you can imagine my disappointment after sitting through an hour and a half of agonizing and painful boringness, I fought hard to stay awake as I watched possibly the worst acting in history, accompanied with a cheesy plot and then just as I was beginning to give the movie another chance when it started to get semi-interesting, the movie just ended, with no explanations or any real ending.
Like so many bad horror films today (DARKNESS FALLS, JEEPERS CREEPERS, etc), the director tries to create tension or atmosphere on the stupidest ideas ever, like showing kids being troubled by something unseen or shadows, or empty corridors.
The reason I stayed in the theater and finished the film was not only because i had just paid $5 to go see it, I didn't care if I waisted that by leaving because I already knew I wasted it when the movie was playing, but I thought maybe it would have a decent ending, but even that was horrible.
As in most movies of this kind, you will enjoy it, get scared and forget after leaving the theatre.The story is classic; a family moves to a house abandoned for forty years, where something evil is already living.
This movie looked very good when i got it, the back of the case made me very interested and i was excited to Watch it.Let me start by saying it took for EVER for the story to move on.
The move to the house and then you watch them do stuff for like 4 days until something happens.I mean if i was the director of this movie i would have taken 4 or 5 of those days and cut them out, and made all that stuff happen in 2 days and then use the rest of the time on the details and explaining things clearer.I thought it was going to be scary.
Then the start took so long to get going by the time the first big thing happened i am was bored with the movie.I would skip this one, unless you can like borrow it from a friend and watch it when your sick or something..
The rest is in the mind of the viewer who is supposed to figure out what all the nonsense means.It's a cheap trick--employing artful camera shots of disturbing images without filling in any of the explanations until the last twenty minutes or so, is really a lame experiment because nothing really adds up when you stop to think about it.What starts out as a horror movie about a small family moving into a country house in Spain and experiencing strange goings on, is set up as straightforward supernatural horror until you realize that nothing much is about to happen despite the ominous surroundings and images of supposedly dead people that permeate the house.It's really no more than a cheap exploitation film, which the filmmakers hoped nobody would notice if they gave the photography some class and talked ANNA PAQUIN and LENA OLIN into the main roles of combative mother and daughter.Like everything else in the story, the ending is an ambiguous one which leads me to suspect the writers were thinking of a sequel.
The trailer makes it look great and there are individual scenes or shots that look like they could be from a good thriller movie, but when mixed in with this script, they continually give seconds of hope to an hour and a half of misery.
Oddly,the Darkness was made in 2002 but it was not released until two years later.Jaume Balagueró and Fernando de Felipe's slow story is good and moves at a nice tension building pace, although it maybe a little to ambiguous for some viewers, especially the ending.
She is doing a great job and thanks to the director at avoiding to make yet another teen-horror movie.Technically, it is very well rendered with short cuts of daunting image impressions, good sound track and even decent acting from Olin and Glen.
Some special effects were used and they are fortunately not part of the story like in many horror movies.
The film builds to a rather nicely thrilling finale, which ultimately saves this film from being a dull-drums ghost story.The cast helps as well, young Anna Paquin being best as the films teenage heroine.Darkness is a pretty decent watch for genre fans, although I wouldn't put it at the top of my must-see list.** 1/2 out of ****.
A Spanish ghost story that wouldn't make much sense to us Americans and that if only you are a huge fan of horror movies and foreign films than you are probably some of the only people who would understand and enjoy this film.
All in all an OK movie if you love horror and foreign films.1 1/2 out of 4 stars.
(Why the story was set in Spain is beyond me, or though there maybe a perfectly good explanation for this and I just happened to miss it.) The new "family home" is big old and creepy the perfect setting for a second rate thriller/horror.
(Dir: Jaume Balaguero)Shedding light on the year's worst film.When did horror movies become unscary?