With some talent in the cast, a cool cover, that it did look fairly eerie and that boasted one of the best concepts for any film seen recently by me, 'The Darkness' potential was pretty big. Also appreciate the horror genre and have liked films in similar vein, so watched 'The Darkness' oddly enough with the genuine want and intent to like it.
It does pain me to say it, and it is going to sound repetitive being a common thing found in recent viewings and mentioned, but 'The Darkness' managed to be a big disappointment for me and from the sounds of it many others. Big potential, executed in a way that while not terrible rarely rose above mediocrity overall. There are moments and good things, but they were too far and between and not enough for a film that did little with such a good idea. It may annoy people with me saying this a lot recently, but it is hard to not say anything when wastes of good ideas and talent is a bugbear of mine and something that has featured rather too heavily in my recent film viewings.
Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell are reasonable leads and David Mazouz is more than up to their level. So the acting is better than average on the whole and somehow manages to rise above the material that was not worthy of them.
'The Darkness' does have an atmospherically spooky look, an eerie music score and a few unsettling moments.
Unfortunately, the creepiness and suspense not just doesn't come consistently, there is nowhere near enough of either. There is an over-reliance on scares, mainly of the jumpy kind, but few come off effectively. Again a few unsettling moments, but too much of them are easily foreseeable and derivative.
Furthermore, too much is over-explained, there is far too much exposition (much of it clumsy and rambling) and too much is given away too soon. The characters aren't very interesting, not to mention very clichéd that it makes the distinct lack of originality even more obvious, making everything really predictable. The script is lazy and underwritten, with too much reliance on the scares, which are not strong enough to come over successfully, the ending is a very "that's it?" one and the intrusive and obvious sound effects telegraph the outcome of the scares early on in the build-ups.
In summary, not terrible but mediocre and a waste of potential. 4/10 Bethany Cox
