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Anadrol
12-18-2003, 04:46 PM
anyone seen this movie Darkness Falls.. is it worth seeing??

saturn
12-18-2003, 05:04 PM
Ya I rented it twice....And that's only because it was so bad the first time I forgot that I had seen it.

Anadrol
12-18-2003, 05:20 PM
okey, I just rent it :D

JohnnyBravo
12-19-2003, 01:37 PM
It is a good scary movie for kids and a decent movie for the rest of us. Worth $4 to see..


Cheers,

JB

Anadrol
12-19-2003, 01:44 PM
I think it sucks :( really crappy movie

IM^
12-19-2003, 02:01 PM
As a lifelong horror movie buff, I always try to give every film I review or comment on a decent chance but Darkness Falls is rather disappointing (to say the least). I have seen much better than this but fair enough, I have also seen worse (some of those Italian Z movies are unbelievably bad :p ). Here is the ViewLondon review about Darkness Falls for you to check out. Hope it helps somewhat.

====================================
Darkness Falls (15)

Horror movie in which an evil creature called ‘The Tooth Fairy’ terrorises the ironically-named town of Darkness Falls during a power cut.

Director: Jonathan Liebesman
Genre: Horror
Stars: Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield

One out of Five stars
Running time: 85 mins

Disappointing horror film that is neither frightening nor amusing – bad acting, sub-standard special effects, terrible script. And not in a good way.

As a gravelly-voiced voiceover explains at the beginning, in the town of Darkness Falls (the film’s best and only joke) there was once an old woman who used to give money to kids if they brought their milk teeth…

However, she suffered severe injuries in a fire and took to wearing a porcelain mask because of her hideous features. Then some kids went missing and – whoops - she was burned as a witch, cursing the town.

Sometimes They Come Back

So, many years later, a little kid named Kyle gets the bejeezus scared out of him the night he loses his first tooth and Something Nasty murders his mother.

Unsurprisingly, this leads to years of therapy. 15 years later, Kyle (Total Nonentity Cheney Kley) hooks up with Caitlin (Emma Caulfield, better known as ‘Anya’ From Buffy), who used to be his 10 year old sweetheart or something.

It turns out her little brother is Afraid Of The Dark. "There's nothing to be afraid of" everyone tells him. "Oh yes there is" he says. But who’s going to believe a story about a monster called The Tooth Fairy? Certainly not the audience.

Anyway, the basic premise is similar to Pitch Black. The Tooth Fairy only attacks in darkness and is afraid of the light. So, naturally, there's a power cut...

Standard Idea Executed Very Badly

The premise of Darkness Falls may be extremely derivative but it’s still a good one. However, it’s completely squandered here, because the film is all over the place.

People get killed randomly (and stupidly - the Tooth Fairy's not very scary method of killing involves whisking people into the air and then dropping them), the continuity is dreadful, and entire scenes seem to be missing.

There are occasionally amusing bits, such as when some Crazy Doctors suggest curing Caitlin’s brother’s fear of the dark by putting him into a sensory deprivation tank, but that's about it.

In the end they all drive to the lighthouse (hey, good idea) and Caitlin removes her nice warm cardigan for No Reason Whatsoever except that it means she spends the final reel in a skimpy top.

The acting is extremely poor – Emma Caulfield is a talented comedic actress and yet she’s given very few good lines and next to nothing to do. As for Kley, well, there’s a reason you haven’t heard of him – he’s rubbish. Even the effects are sub-standard, and not in an amusingly cheap way, either.

In short, since it isn’t remotely scary, or in any way amusing, the entire film feels like a colossal waste of time. Rent Scream again, instead.

================================

Hope you find this review helpful man.

IM^
12-19-2003, 02:07 PM
TheTooth Fairy from Darkness Falls. :rolleyes:

BiggerStronger
12-19-2003, 05:24 PM
Sounds like an excellent film based off of the review. I'll try to rent it tonight if my local library has a copy. :rolleyes:

Anadrol
12-19-2003, 06:01 PM
Originally posted by IM^

In short, since it isn’t remotely scary, or in any way amusing, the entire film feels like a colossal waste of time. Rent Scream again, instead.

[/B]

It sucks

bilter
12-21-2003, 12:26 PM
I agree. It sucked. How about the movie 29 days about the flesh eating zombies. that is supposed to be pretty good........if you're into flesh eating zombies.

IM^
12-21-2003, 07:16 PM
I'm assuming you mean the movie 28 Days Later (some countries have it released as 29 Days Later for some infernal copyright reason :mad: ). That's a movie I would definitely recommend (obviously if you are into horror or zombie movies). Here is a review for you, taken again from ViewLondon.


==========================

28 Days Later... (18)
British ‘Undead In London’ horror movie, from the Trainspotting team – 28 days after a deadly virus is released Jim wakes up from a coma to find London entirely deserted apart from a lot of very, very angry zombies…

Director: Danny Boyle
Genre: Sci-Fi Website: http://www.28dayslaterthemovie.co.uk

Stars:
Brendan Gleeson
Christopher Eccleston
Cillian Murphy
Megan Burns
Naomie Harris
Noah Huntley


Four out of Five stars
Running time: 113 mins

Impressive, atmospheric and VERY scary, this is an extremely effective British horror movie – it falls apart towards the end, but by then you’ll be too scared to care.

Alright. Hands up all those of you who’d written off Danny Boyle and the Trainspotting team as having, essentially ‘lost it’.

Well, exactly. And who could blame you? Amazingly, however, it turns out they were just biding their time and suddenly up pops this rather impressive Zombies In London flick, directed by Boyle and written by Alex Garland (the author of The Beach, who you’d have thought would have disowned Boyle & co. after the Beach movie, but apparently not).

It’s also safe to say that Fox know they have a potentially huge Halloween hit on their hands, as their frankly superb teaser campaign indicates. If you’ve yet to see the sequential comic artwork currently visible as you ride the escalator in certain tube stations, then check out the relevant ‘underground’ section of the 28 Days Later website.

No. No. Don’t Release The Killer Monkeys!

The film starts brilliantly, with a brief prologue in which Stupid Animal Rights Hippies break into a research facility and release a bunch of Killer Monkeys, ignoring David Schneider's cries of "No. No. Don't release the Killer Monkeys." etc. They are injected with RAGE, apparently, as, like, a metaphor for our times, yeah? Anyway, if one of these pesky monkeys bites you, or just one drop of infected blood touches you, you turn into a zombie before you can say "Grrr. Argh."

Cut to London, "28 Days Later..." (there are no other credits) and Cillian Murphy as Jim, who wakes up in a hospital, Day of the Triffids style and finds that there's no one around. This leads to perhaps the most impressive bit of the film – several shots of Cillian wandering around a completely deserted London, including Waterloo Bridge and, amazingly, Piccadilly Circus.

(In case you suspect Digital Trickery, these sequences were apparently done for real, with special permission from That Nice Mr Livingstone and everything. In fact you can tell it’s genuine because Cillian completely fails to notice someone clearly walking up Haymarket as he comes up the steps near The Mall...)

High Speed Zombie Chase

Shortly afterwards, in the first of many superbly-timed shocks, Jim discovers some people in a church but -ARGH!- they're zombies and they start running after him extremely fast. Well, fast for zombies. Not speeded-up fast. But they wave their arms around a lot so it looks like they're faster than they are. It's a lot scarier than it sounds and, if you think about it, Running Zombies is a stroke of genius in Making Zombies Scarier terms.

So, Jim gets rescued, then hooks up with a couple of Zombie Hunters, one of whom (Naomie Harris) is really rather cute. Then they meet Brendan Gleeson and his daughter, (who have somehow avoided being evacuated or becoming zombies, but no matter) and they decide to investigate a radio signal they’ve heard, suggesting there’s a group of people out there leading a resistance…

To be honest, the film loses it somewhat in the second half, when Christopher Eccleston And His Band Of Bastards turn up and it becomes, in places, irritatingly silly. However, there have been so many great scenes and scary moments by this point that you’ll be too caught up in the film to really get that annoyed.

Gritty Not Glossy!

The film is well-acted, particularly by Murphy (Disco Pigs), who has a spaced-out, not-quite-of-this-world quality as an actor that really adds to his role. It’s also filmed on digital video (by Anthony Dod Mantle, who shot Festen), giving the film a gritty, more realistic feel and distinguishing it from glossy Hollywood horrors such as Scream etc.

Boyle has also made some daring decisions with the soundtrack, particularly during one or two key sequences. (These scenes are destined to be argued over in pubs – does the music add to the effect or ruin it completely? You’ll have to see the film and decide for yourself.)

To sum up, this is an excellent film that presents a unique view of London and breathes new life into the zombie genre. In addition, the shocks work brilliantly and there are some truly terrifying moments. Which, let’s face it, is all you really need from a zombie flick. Highly recommended!

============================

Let me know if you liked it. :D

You can see a still from the movie below.

Anadrol
12-21-2003, 07:29 PM
I didn't like that one either :(

Wasn't scary enough

GetnBigr
12-22-2003, 06:32 AM
sounds bad to me; i will be saving the money on that one

JohnnyBravo
12-22-2003, 09:23 AM
Well, that one left me dissapointed. It had great potential but bombed. I guess it was an NT (nice try).

Of course this is referenced to all the HYPE it received prior to release, otherwise it was a decent movie.

Cheers,


JB

IM^
12-22-2003, 10:05 PM
Hey c'mon Anadrol and GetnBigr, 28 Days Later is really not such a bad horror movie. Horror is all relative you know; it all depends on what we find scary in our subconscious tha will scare us in the movies. And even with that, one must be prepared to allow the movie to take him/her on a trip that will stretch the imagination a little and take us to places where we are prepared to let go and believe. If we watch a horror movie as skeptics, it will do nothing for us because we are not even allowing ourselves to let go and be taken for the ride for a couple of hours.

OK let's take a couple of examples? Who else thinks that Halloween is a great movie? (The first one obviously, I don't think much of sequels.) What about the original Friday the 13th? And Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the 1973, not the sorry 2003 version)? Man, that Marilyn Burns could scream! :eek: And, there is my all time favorite - William Friedkin's The Exorcist? These are acknowledged classics, milestones in horror movie cinematic history, but even these masterpieces have people who shoot them down. Why? Because at the end of the day, it's all relative and individual dependent. Which is why one must be ready to go for the ride in order to be in the right frame of mind to watch a horror movie and enjoy it for what it is.

Want some more good movies? Just ask, and I'll give you the names of what I think are some of the best times you'll spend in front of your screen getting scared... ;)

Anadrol
12-22-2003, 10:31 PM
well....28 days later was boring... not so much hooro in that one

please give me some names on good horror movies, Jeepers Creepers was really good according to me, The Exorcist too

IM^
12-23-2003, 12:43 PM
Jeepers Creepers WAS good and had lots of promise till they showed the monster on screen. After that, it quickly became pretty hard to believe and thereby, silly. Remember that the monster in your head is always scarier than the monster they show you - simply because you can scare yourself with your own fears more effectively than someone else can scare you with what [i]they[/i[ think is going to scare you most.

OK, here are some good horror movies off the top of my head:

The Exorcist
Halloween
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Friday the 13th
The Sixth Sense
The Others
Ringu
Night of the Living Dead
The Evil Dead
Alien
The Fog
Pumpkinhead
The Blair Witch Project
Poltergeist
Psycho
The Omen

That should give you guys a few hours of suspense. Anyone wanting to debate/add to the list/detract from the list etc etc feel welcome.

:p

slip3147
12-23-2003, 04:12 PM
Ok, i disliked this movie. I it's scary, it's cheezy at best. The Ring is much scarier

Anadrol
12-23-2003, 06:57 PM
the ring was pretty scary.... But maybe i'm just a p**sy

IM^
12-23-2003, 08:44 PM
Not sure what Slip3147 is referring so I cannot reply. Maybe you could elaborate Slip? Also, I don't like comments like "it blows" or "it sucks" in reference to horror movies. If you think a movie isn't good, it's a rather more intelligent idea to point out exactly WHY you think it sucked or it blew. That way, I can make up my mind not only as to what exacly you think is wrong with the movie but also to your ability to analyze and critique a movie. "It sucked" or "it blows" tells me nothing at all about anything - neither the movie nor your ability and/or reliability as a competent reviewer.

And, incidentally Anadrol, I said Ringu not The Ring - the former is the original Japanese version, the latter is the remake. Ringu, the original flick is a lot better than the American remake, probably because the Japanese idea of horror on celluloid is totally different to what we have become accustomed to in the Western cinematic world.

jaywooly
12-23-2003, 09:34 PM
I've never seen one scary movie my entire life.

IM^
12-25-2003, 08:31 AM
Hehehe, :D good one Jaywooly, loved that and it's very probably true. However, everyone is scared of something so basically, it's all a pretty individualistic thing. Just a matter of finding what unsettles you. ;)

IM^
12-26-2003, 06:16 PM
Anyone watch any of those movies yet?

Anadrol
12-26-2003, 07:14 PM
well ... i've seen
Halloween
Friday the 13th - Pretty good
The Others - Didn't liked that one, boring
Ringu - Don't remember, seen The Ring (american version)
Night of the Living Dead - Pretty old and boring
Alien - it's more science-fiction
The Blair Witch Project - Real good first time I saw it
Psycho - Good but boring

IM^
12-27-2003, 04:25 AM
Ringu knocks the socks off the American remake, it's pretty gripping. If The Ring got to you, Ringu will have you jumping at shadows. The only bad thing about The Others was that it came out after The Sixth Sense, so the public already had a taste of that type of horror/ghost movie and the latter movie was, to be honest, superior to the former. Alien is science fiction but who said science fiction can't be horrific? It's a good horror movie in its own right, and it's pretty reminiscent of David Cronenberg's The Brood as well. I see you don't really like the old horror movies :p but when one is exposed to today's productions, it's easy to miss the quality some of these old films had. If you were to sit down and watch Night of the Living Dead in the correct frame of mind, you'd see that it is a better movie than you at first thought (though I will admit that it IS a dated production in this day and age), and that it also carries a subliminal social message about the interactions between the different social/racial "hierarchies" at the time. Psycho is another movie that looks rather old nowadays; however, remember that it set the trend for hundreds of horror movies that trod reverently in its wake. Wasn't that Norman Bates (a truly excellent portrayal by the late Anthony Perkins) a creepy bugger or what? It's easy to imagine that there are people out there exactly like that even today - a quiet demeanor hiding the monster inside. I like to think he was the evolutionary starting point that finally led to the creation of Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter (as portrayed by Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs, another really good horror thriller). "Hallo Clarice" never packed so much menace. :eek:

Hey you still have got some movies on that list to go through before I give you another one. :D Try watching them alone somewhere deserted for effect. Hehehe. You might want to take Jaywooly with you tho, just in case the man who escaped from the mental asylum who has a hook for a hand is prowling outside... :D

Anyone else like horror movies here?

Anadrol
12-27-2003, 04:31 AM
Gotta say The Shining.. I like that one

IM^
12-27-2003, 06:04 AM
Great movie from the great visionary Kubrick. However, it suffered from terrible miscasting. The story is supposed to be about a man who descends slowly into madness, propelled by the mysterious evil forces of the hotel. Jack Nicholson, fresh from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was pegged as a nutter from scene one, making the film lose a lot of its impact. Still a great movie with great camerawork and nail biting suspense however.

Anadrol
12-27-2003, 07:04 AM
yeah... he seemed to be a loonie right from the beginning