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List Price: $19.99 | | Label: Dimension
Salesrank: 106113
Released: April 26, 2005 |
| Our Price: $1.16 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
This hit thriller teams Anna Paquin (X-MEN) with Lena Olin (HOLLYWOOD HOMICIDE, CHOCOLAT) and Iain Glen (RESIDENT EVIL: APOCALYPSE, LARA CROFT: TOMBRAIDER) as a family whose life forever changes when they move into a new home with an ancient secret! Not long after Regina (Paquin) begins living in her family’s remote country estate, she learns that there’s something horribly disturbing about the old place. Even as her parents dismiss her concerns, strange things begin to happen whenever the lights go out. Soon Regina realizes that a series of escalating supernatural events will unleash the full evil that resides in their house!
Darkness Reviews:
One Decent honest horror film indeed!!!!! 
2009-07-14 - I was genuinely scared for the first time in a long time when I watched this movie in theatres when it arrived to Iceland in spahish.
My own theory is that most of the one and two starers are looking for something that goes beyound the sense of fright this film gives someone like me. It's about 'devil worshippers'in lower fifth - dimensional Spain of the late 1990's and beyound , who decide decades earlier to have a house built to harness what the ONA calls 'acausal energies'.
These devil - worshippers believed in what they felt to be the useability of human sacrifice to aid themselves in their deeply dark , seriously sinister 'shamanic'journeying - journeying to the lower forth dimension and beyound.
They allow one member to make a decision to let his child escape , but sacrifice all the other children they felt they had to sacrifice to finish off their ritual - in a manner I found to be one of the most terrifying descriptions in movie history. This film is dark. And I am not pissed off by these one star reviewers of this film , but rather perplexed , wondering what films they may know about which go beyound the Darkness. I chose to use this movie in my own spiritual journeying minus all the brutal violence of course with seriously good results.
I loved the film and saw it again and again and again , in Spanish and in English , and it deals with the concept of child sacrifice by supposedly existing 'satanist groups'you never hear about anywhere , especially not in the writings of the top anti - satanism authors , and in the writings of such authors as David Icke.
The Darkness is not only a scary horror film - it is a sinister horror movie which kind of captivates an atmosphere whose nature as sinister is akin to the atmosphere people felt while watching the Exorcist in the eighties and earlier. This is serious horror and it'll give most people who view it the creeps if they're viewing it for the first time and many of them have not written a review of this movie on amazon.com. This film is more scary than many horror movies that have been released since , but there are a few who to me unleashed the same sense of sinister feeling but they didn't contain any elements relating to other entities than human beings , such as Inside and Frontiers.
This is a very well done horror movie , well worth the title 'one decent horror film'.
Not Enough Darkness... 
2009-04-12 - The main problem I have with DARKNESS is that it feels so incomplete, as though half of the story was left out. I love the blackened mood and overwhelming sense of doom and dread, it's just that it seems to lead up to a disappointing finalé. If more time had been spent on developing the history underlying the house, the cult, and their child victims, the strength and depth of the story would have carried the horror elements. Of course, the movie would have been longer by maybe 30-60 minutes, but it would have been a lot better for it. As it stands, DARKNESS is a half-baked film full of untapped potential that never quite terrifies. I wish people would stop trying to cram everything into 90 minutes, even when more time is absolutely necessary! AAAARGG!!...
An hour and a half wasted 
2008-04-17 - I love horror movies. Good ones are genius--scary, intriguing, memorable, and revolutionary in their conservatism.
Darkness is none of these things. When I finished it, I was actually angry at the crew for subjecting me to an hour and twenty minutes of drivel. In fact, I turned to the special features and found a behind the scenes featurette there, but even that left me with nothing after it ended abruptly in three minutes.
On the one hand, the plot is completely contrived and obvious: an eclipse is approaching and a ceremony involving children must be performed during the event. On the other hand, the plot is completely preposterous and unexplained: "the darkness" is coming, a darkness that is pure evil. The characters discover it through an old book that they mysteriously know about. None of it makes any sense. If I tried to explain it, you would be left shaking your head, just as I am thinking about it.
The good thing about this movie is the camerawork. The light and shadow used throughout the movie is actually pretty great. I like the way the movie lets us see what is in the shadows even though the main characters can't see it. Most of the scares here, what few there are, are through interesting camerwork and the use of darkness.
If it were not for the camerawork, I would give it zero stars (if such a thing were possible).
DARK ISN'T THE WORD
2008-03-15 - There are movies that come out that present high expectations in their viewers. And there are movies that come out that don't offer expectations all that high, but enough to make fans curious. Horror fans love their stuff, and are sorely tempted when watching a preview for this movie. But this one goes beyond showing the good stuff in the previews. This one sinks to showing nothing but those scenes AND trying to convince you that it is at least a decent movie. It falls far short.
The story revolves around Regina (Anna Paquin), a young teenage girl whose parents have just moved her and her younger brother Paul (Stephan Enquist) to Spain where her father grew up. Their grandfather lives there and helps them and they settle in a remote house just outside of town, one that needs a little work.
From the moment the movie begins, there are unsettling things happening in the house. Paul begins drawing some disturbing pictures that seem to relate to the film's prologue where a young boy is on the run from something or someone terrible found in the house.
Regina's parents Maria and Mark (Lena Olin and Iain Glen) seem to be very loving parents. But dad has an attack while driving one day and that's when we, the viewers, find out that he has had them before. And they terrify Regina. Afterwards, dad begins to have more frequent bouts of attacks and starts to act irrationally, scaring Regina and Paul even more although mom refuses to admit there is anything wrong.
Anyway, the films unravels slowly, offering us glimpses into what is causing all of these problems but never totally telling us until near the end. And the answer is one most will figure out early on. Not to mention the fact that is not the least scary. Any film maker can offer a few jump scenes in a film. But to truly terrify an audience, you have to come straight at them. This movie plays around way too much.
The story behind the house and those who inhabit it offer the briefest glimpse of where this movie might have gone, offering just a speck of something interesting. But plot and the secret revealed are so overly convoluted that by the time you finish, you just don't care. And then ending is completely disappointing.
If you love horror films, rent one of the newer releases out there or go see something...anything...new in theaters. But as for THE DARKNESS, leave it in the dark.
In the Shadows....
2008-03-09 - First let me stress that this is no masterpiece but it stands head and shoulders above the last two Hollywood "horror" films I tortuously endured, "Invasion" and "1408."
Perhaps because it seems to be the product of a number of international production finance groups (too many cooks in the kitchen) the script is a bit confusing and has some gaping holes in it... but the performances are excellent and the direction gently raises the hair on your neck enough times to make it an intelligent late night popcorn flick. The director understands that shadows aren't meant to reveal everything, and that oddities fleetingly glimpsed just outside the corner of your eye can be the most chilling. The ham fisted director of "1408" may want to take note...
You can justifiably find a number of things to complain about in this film but you definitely won't be buying any spooky old houses in the Spanish countryside in the immediate future. And like me you just might watch it a second time, where some of the details at last reveal themselves.
