Darkness (2002) Directed by Jaume Balagueró
Darkness was a good reminder to me of why I enjoy bad schlock-horror movies—because they’re not really scary—at best they’re sometimes creepy, and most of the time they’re more amusing than frightening. If I want the shit scared out of me I can read the news or The Weekly Standard. Mostly my taste in horror leans toward the all-time classics that are stylish and thought-provoking but not so chilling to me anymore. Granted, I can remember when I was very little being so scared of Frankenstein that even Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein gave me nightmares. Darkness, though, is a genuinely creepy and frightening film. I don’t know what possessed me to watch it twice (maybe it was “the Darkness”) but even though I knew everything that happened and when it would happen, I still found myself trying to read a book (about the archaeology of Pompeii, if you must know) while “watching” it the second time because sometimes knowing what’s coming doesn’t help.
I have to admit that in the light of day and with a little bit of thought I can think about how silly the main premise of this film is and I start wondering about the giant plot holes. But after midnight, in a darkened quiet room all by myself, I’m more than a little creeped out by this film.
So, what’s so damn scary?
1. Jaume Balagueró seems to understand that even in a motion picture it’s what you don’t see that can be the most frightening. You might think it’s a cheap trick to have the antagonist of the film be “darkness” thus implying sinister motives to every shadow, but it’s hard to pretend that it’s silly when you get a flash of something crossing the screen or—in the most godawfully nightmare inducing moment--a flash of light reveals a room full of ghost children in the foreground with their backs to the camera as they (and we) look beyond them to Anna Paquin in the well-lit room beyond. She never sees them, we do, and it’s not funny, it’s not silly, it’s not cheesy, it frankly still scares the everlasting crap out of me. You can have the world’s best special effects create the world’s ugliest monster—but while that may be grotesque, it’s not necessarily as frightening as a brief glimpse of nothing and the suspicion that something may be amiss.
2. Children, as has long been noted, are the perfect targets of potential victimhood in fiction because we (most of us) are hardwired to want to protect the little ones. So, the first time Paul (Stephan Enquist) watches his colored pencil start twitching like a compass needle and rolling under the bed (into the “darkness”) of its own accord, or when his toy carousel lights up and starts whirling about on its own, it activates that child-saving part of the brain even as it also sparks the visceral memories of being afraid of the dark and all the unknown potential malevolent entities that might be lurking about in the great big world.
3. Anna Paquin in peril sparks a very different, but similarly essential desire to protect and serve.
4. There’s nothing scarier than not knowing where the danger is coming from. The great red herring of the film is the father (Iain Glen) whose fate is the crux of the film. Even when I knew he was going to be the victim his snapping rage was a bit creepy.
5. There’s nothing more evil than being betrayed by your own grandfather. Grandparents are supposed to be even more kindly than parents, so when Giancarlo Giannini turns out to be evil, it’s disappointing enough, but when he reveals why his evil ritual didn’t work out in the first place he turns out to be two different kinds of evil.
6. Real horror is unremitting. In a different kind of horror movie Anna Paquin and her boyfriend and little Paul would make it out alive and then you’d get some sort of ominous thing following them—thus setting up the sequel. Darkness, on the other hand, is as bleak as the title—no one makes it out alive. The father is killed by his own loving family in a botched tracheotomy. (Don’t swallow a whole bottle full of pills when you’re angry.) Lena Olin’s blood is sprayed all over the kitchen. The real Carlos is suckered into the house where he will be taken care of. The architect who tries to help is killed in the subway and Regina and Paul close out the film by being driven into their end in a tunnel by the fake Carlos. That’s a pretty brutal body count.
The real reason to see Darkness is for the visual style. It has some of the best use of background light and practical effects you’ll ever see. The scene with the architect walking through the subway tunnel with the lights going off behind him in stages as the darkness catches up to him is as brilliant as it is simple. Balagueró and his cinematographer Xavi Gimenéz are consistently clever in their use of practical effects and simple light and shadow to give us a sense of evil. I thought even the orange juice in the house was evil.
On the nature of that evil, though, the attempt to make this something bigger than a haunted house movie comes up with mixed results. Sure, the house and the darkness are eerie, but once you throw in the visit to the library to look up the conveniently located tome describing an ancient ritual unleashing the original evil darkness the mystery is gone and suddenly I’m not scared. (How scared can I be by something hidden in a library in Spain?) And here’s the key question: if the darkness is already capable of imitating people and beating up children in the house, and if it is already capable of hunting down and killing people in the subway tunnel, then what purpose does it really serve to complete the ritual to “unleash” the darkness? It would seem that the darkness is already pretty fucking leashless.
And are those the actual ghosts of the children in the house, or is it just the darkness using their apparitions? I can only assume that they’re just creepy minions of the darkness because otherwise I don’t understand why the ghosts of the murdered children would want to be so cooperative with the agenda of the darkness.
Also, why is it that the electrician who shows up to work on the house is Scottish? I guess the EU’s employment rules have really opened things up for Scottish Electricians.
Now, you might take issue with all this overthinking of the details, but it sure does take my mind off the creepy things lurking in the shadows—and you might need to use a similar technique to get to sleep after seeing Darkness.
Acting
Iain Glen comes off like a creepy version of the dad from Malcolm in the Middle (Bryan Cranston) and does an incredible imitation of a cuisinart. My favorite moment is when he gets loopy and gulps down a whole bottle of meds while trying to batter down the kitchen door.
Maybe it’s just the legacy of Romeo is Bleeding, but Lena Olin always has something of an edge to me. That explains why I thought she might be in on the evil plan.
Anna Paquin is obviously really good in the vulnerable role, though there were several times when I wished she could just go ahead and mix up Regina and Rogue into one character and just start kicking ass. Also, I have to hand it to the filmmakers that they managed to work in both a scene with Regina in a bathtub and one in the changing room of a natatorium without ever going for the exploitation angle.
Giancarlo Giannini exudes weariness and between this film, Hannibal and Dune he’s mastered the ways of people secretly up to no good. His best moment is when he explains that he knew that killing his own kid wouldn’t complete the darkness ritual because he realized that he didn’t love his son. Heartbreaking…and creepy.
And a special notice goes to Fermi Reixach, whose character of Villalobos, the architect is my personal favorite. His scene in the subway tunnel should be iconic as a symbol of man limping forward with determination in the struggle against evil. Yeah, I got all of that from Fermi Reixach walking down a subway station hall.
Special Features
Yeah, the trailer and the teaser are as scary as the film itself. The teaser asks "Will you dare enter?" and I can only respond with a resounding "No, not really, I think I have to go mow the lawn or something."
“Darkness Illuminated” features director Balagueró explaining how most of the effects are done in camera and how the most effective frights are what you don’t see. As a matter of cinematic technique it's worth hearing someone talk sense and not hide behind technical wizardry. And Lena Olin sums up the film with “It’s a very specific way of scaring the crap out of people.” Only too true. Sometimes watching these behind-the-scenes featurettes helps take the edge off a horror movie. Not this time.
