The horror film “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark,” currently screening at the Fanango Galaxy cineplex in Carson City and elsewhere in the Tahoe area, stars Bailee Madison as Sally Hirst. She’s about 10 or 12, is a bit chubby and has a mean way of not listening to her father Alex Hirst (Guy Pearce) or his wife Kimberly (Katie Holmes).
Sally was deserted by her mother and thus wound up with Alex and Kim in the gothic mansion architect Alex is restoring. She’s unhappy and despite soothing moves from Alex and Kim becomes a wanderer in the vast pile of stones. She finds a secret basement and despite warnings from the groundskeeper continues to explore. The groundskeeper pays for his trouble by being attacked by the bad little monsters who haunt the mansion, little fellows devoutly ugly and about the size of a pigeon.
Alex doesn’t believe Sally’s warnings but Kim does and tries to escape the mansion. But she doesn’t quite make it … but Sally does and rejoins her father.
Well, not a lot of horror jolts here, and Bailee isn’t the usual scene-stealing child actor. Holmes is believable and Alex is a there if not sparkling. The little monsters are kind of cute if you’re into ugly, but the film moves along so slowly that you’re tempted to cry out, “Get it moving.” Director Troy Nixey, a former comic book director, was in not hurry to get this one moving. Very much not in the slash and burn way of films these days. Special effects are not very special but we are spared the usual 3D hype that adds little to a movie.
Mild as horror films go but with a R rating for the hour an 40-minute movie.
—Sam Bauman
Cast
• Katie Holmes as Kimberly “Kim” Hirst
• Bailee Madison as Sally Hirst
• Guy Pearce as Alex Hirst
• Alan Dale as Jacoby
• Jack Thompson as Harris
• Eliza Taylor Cotter
• Nicholas Bell as The Doctor
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• Directed by Troy Nixey
• Produced by Guillermo del Toro
• Mark Johnson
• Stephen Jones
• Deja Chaney Written by Guillermo del Toro
• Music by Marco Beltrami
• Buck Sanders
• Cinematography Oliver Stapleton Studio Miramax Films
