Fridae

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark may be directed by former comic book artist Troy Nixey but make no mistake: the vision behind it is still that of producer/writer Guillermo Del Toro. An obvious Lovecraft junkie to the core, Del Toro serves up a screenplay clearly inspired by Lovecraft’s The Rats in the Walls and The Lurking Fear, in which deep-dwelling creatures exist just under the facade of the human world.

Guy Pearce plays Alex, who with his daughter Sally (Bailee Madison), moves to a large old house somewhere in Rhode Island where Alex, as a prominent architect, is keen on refurbishing to boost his reputation. The house used to belong to a famous ornithologist named Emerson Blackwood (a nod to the fantasy writer Algernon Blackwood, an influence on Lovecraft), who disappeared without a trace soon after his son disappeared.

As Alex, his girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) and Sally soon find out, the disappearance is due to the presence of a race of “tooth fairies”, who are never called out as such in the film but are obviously inspired by the mythos (in fact, they show remarkable similarities to the tooth fairies shown in Del Toro’s Hellboy 2.): creatures that feed on calcium and by extension, human teeth and bones. Here they are depicted as savage humanoids about half to one foot high. Before long, Alex, Kim and Sally will fight for their very lives as the tooth fairies seek to finish their ritual of sacrificing a human child.

The screenplay seems to be Del Toro and co-writer Matthew Robbins operating on second gear. Robbins is a veteran with some impressive genre films like Dragonslayer and Batteries Not Included under his belt, but the guiding intelligence behind the screenplay seems to be Del Toro. Perhaps due to circumstances that will please newcomers but will disappoint older longtime fans such as myself, Del Toro seems to basically repeat his list of obsessions from subterranean worlds to labyrinthine gardens here, and the fact that he has gotten a lesser director than himself seems to give the film the overall feel of being Del Toro-lite. Nixey directs suspensefully and excitingly, but he just doesn’t have the way with horror that Del Toro does. The creatures are also a letdown when revealed, since by showing the threat visually the movie pretty much turns itself into a chase-based action movie for the rest of its running time.

Still, it speaks to its overall effectiveness and the strength of Del Toro’s writing and vision that even when he lets others direct and operates on second gear, that this is a horror film that will nevertheless, revive the basement-fearful kid in you.