this horror movie, darkness falls, about the "tooth fairy," a 150-years dead and deformed nice-old-lady-turned-vengeful spirit, is not as bad as other movies i've seen in the last year. but it does almost stink, if not on ice.
the plot is very stephen king-like and so is the setting, coastal maine, but that is where the similarities end. not that stephen king movies are ever what they could have been, but this story doesn't even meet the same level of actual scariness as sleepwalkers, and that film was awfully stupid.
the story focuses on a ghost that will kill whomever sees her face and only comes out at night and hides in the dark. now, stephen king is afraid of the dark, from what i understand, but this film tries to create a rational reason for scotophobia or nyctophobia, the irrational fear of night and darkness, by explaining that all scotophobes and unsolved murders in the region around darkness falls, maine, are connected to the curse of the wrongfully-accused and horribly deformed woman, nicknamed the tooth fairy for her penchant for giving local children a gold coin for their baby teeth.
i'm tired of describing the film. suffice to say, it wasn't good enough to pay any money for, and i'm glad i didn't, but it can kill an afternoon just fine if you want to borrow it from the library as i did and like an overly curious preteen you can't follow the advice, "don't peek."
juiced September 4, 2003 08:22 PM | pokes (1)Sleepwalkers... I had forgotten the name of that film. The one redeeming factor (which by far did not do anything to counterbalance the horrible plot) was Alice Krige.
I had heard it was a short story by King, and that the "adaptation" was pretty loose. Having never read the short story it was "based" on, I can't say, for sure.
Speaking of King, I'd have to say I prefer his psychological thrillers above his horror, and his fantasy novels more than his other books.
Rick Hautala (did I spell that right?) and Clive Barker seemed more interesting to me, at least when I was a teen, reading horror novels.
squeezed by: gigamatt at September 5, 2003 06:04 AM