I have nobody but myself to blame for paying to sit in a nearly empty theater on a Monday night to see the dull disappointment of a film that is The Darkness. Despite the fact that The Darkness is currently sitting at a six percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I had to see it because I am a sucker for horror films based around Native American mysticism. Unfortunately, The Darkness is your run-of-the-mill Blumhouse Productions film, lacking unpredictability and squandering the potential it does have.
Directed by Greg McLean (Wolf Creek, Rogue), the film stars Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell, the latter with whom McLean worked on Rogue. The story is centered on the Taylors, a family that vacations in the Grand Canyon to visit some friends. While exploring, the young son, Mikey (David Mazouz) stumbles upon five obsidian stones in a cavern and takes them home to Los Angeles. The family begins to experience paranormal phenomena around the house, and Mikey begins to act strangely, speaking to imaginary friends and drawing symbols on the wall. At first, the family chalks up these changes to Mikey’s autism spectrum disorder, but soon realizes that their home is being besieged by five Native American spirits who are using Mikey to bring themselves into the world so they can subjugate and destroy humanity.
Bacon is as charismatic as always in the role of the father and unfaithful husband, Peter Taylor. Mitchell gives the standout performance in the film as Mikey’s mother, Bronny Taylor, and I would have loved to see more of her character in a film better than this one. Mazouz is solid in the role of Bronny and Peter’s son, Mikey, portraying a character whose personality changes scene to scene.
Despite being presented as your average mysterious poltergeists in most scenes of the film, the spirits are trying to bring about an apocalypse by torturing mankind with horrific visions until everyone kills themselves. However, while checking off everything on the ghost film tropes checklist, the film forgets that its central antagonists are essentially gods. For instance, the spirits collectively name themselves “Jenny” when revealing themselves to Mikey, which was completely laughable. The spirits don’t seem too bright either, since they create a portal to their dimension in the only location where their one weakness is exposed, which felt like a forced deus ex machina to resolve the drawn-out climax. When these spirits act so illogically, any tension they could have cultivated with their presence is undermined.
And if you’re hoping for some striking sequences or terrifying moments, there are none to be found. The film is content to follow the usual horror film beats to a T, wasting a fairly solid premise that is ripe for crafting genuine fear.
An interesting sociocultural commentary that could have been intertwined in such a film is the clash between the constantly expanding modern suburbia and the callous treatment of Native American cultures and their heritage sites. But, unlike the much better Wolfen, The Darkness is not interested in having any meat to back up its frail skeleton of a story. While Wolfen had the subtext of encroaching modern capitalism threatening to suppress Native American cultures, The Darkness reveals nothing beneath its surface; instead it simply moves from one jump scare sequence to the next. The film relies on clunky expositions and contrived plot points , such as characters engaging in poorly shot montages where they watch YouTube videos or talking about exorcisms at company dinners, to hold it together.
For all its misfires, there are a few elements that work despite how poorly they are handled. I’m always slightly unnerved by the old “creepy figure in the background of a picture” scare, which is common to these kinds of films. The spirit designs are also eerie in the few fleeting moments when they are on screen, though they are usually relegated to being stills in the YouTube videos that the characters watch. Rather than allowing the protagonists to see these demonous spirits themselves, the filmmakers instead have the characters sit down and watch documentaries explaining the mythology. It feels clunky and forced, falling into the trap of “telling” instead of “showing.”
Though this film has an intriguing premise, there unfortunately wasn’t anything to hold my attention and keep me on the edge of my seat like other films in the Native American horror sub genre. The Darkness is just a meandering slog to sit through. Lay these spirits to rest and watch something else.
Grade: D
Film Critic Vikrant Nallaparaju is a College Sophomore from Houston, Texas studying Anthropology and Human Biology. This is his second year writing for the wheel and the first serving as film a critic. When it comes to movies, he can usually be found watching the films of Joe Dante and lamenting the fall of John Carpenter.
