Everyone left the theatre a little confused. “”Darkness Falls”” provided neither an actor from “”Dawson’s Creek,”” nor a female lead with ridiculously large breasts. Standing in where James Van Der Beek should have been was Chaney Kley. If you haven’t heard from him, it is because he has never been in a film before, and he will more than likely never be in a film again. The female lead is played by Emma Caulfield, who hails with bit parts from such series as “”Beverly Hills: 90210″” and “”Nash Bridges.””
With this kind of star power, all a film needs is a script revolving around a tooth fairy burn victim gone crazy. Luckily, “”Darkness Falls”” provides just that. Besides being troubled by the number of logical inconsistencies that seem to plague most modern horror film scripts, “”Darkness Falls”” also failed to provide any explanation as to how the haunted tooth fairy chose her victims. While she was supposed to plague the entire town of Darkness Falls, she spent the majority of the film chasing after just two of its citizens.
No, there was no typo in the last line. “”Darkness Falls”” is not only the name of the film, but also the city in which the film is set and a noun-verb combo that won’t quit for anyone in this roller-coaster ride that never takes off.
Anyone who has seen the trailer knows that the film’s famously haunting whisper is “”stay in the light.”” Some slight variation of this phrase made up the majority of the film’s dialogue. The phrase continues to haunt the viewers as they leave the theatres only because they have heard it so frequently during the 84 minutes of the movie.
It really isn’t easy to make a film this bad. One must consider the fact that if the filmmakers had done anything worse, than it might have almost been laughable, and had they done anything better, well, obviously the film would have benefited from that as well.
The scariest thing about this film is that it ever got made, and even scarier perhaps is that it made it to wide theatre release. Even if this film had a redeeming message, it still would not be good enough to show as an after school special. Please do not see this film; doing so would only encourage studios to release others like it.
Darkness Falls
*
Starring Chancy Kley and Emma Caulfield
In theaters Jan. 24
Rated PG-13