No Spoilers

I started The Darkness some months ago but only watched a few minutes of it before I got distracted and had to do something else. This movie had been growing in the back of my mind for some time and today was the day I decided to finally sit down and watch the whole thing.

The Darkness starts off with our family on a hiatus at the Grand Canyon. There’s some family stuff going on and then the kids decide to go off and explore. While exploring one of the children falls through a short sinkhole and discovers a cave and passage which leads to some underground Native American temple or something with dark ominous shadowlike beings painted on the wall. On a makeshift altar in front of the dark painted beings are five stones with what I imagine are Native American inscriptions etched into them. As the child explores his surroundings we get a cut screen to the Grand Canyon and then some shots of the parents taking pictures and wrapping up their day. Then it’s time to go and the family packs up in the family vehicle and goes home.

There’s minor foreshadowing of things to come with music and the ambiance of the sets which let us know that though everything looks normal, things are not quite as they seem. There’s a lot of unease expertly planted with a family struggling to cope in what seems to be a dark, cruel, and unforgiving world, but the genius is this could be any world and any family. The Darkness is excellent in the way it manipulates the family dynamic and you just can’t put a finger on what’s going on with the family as a whole. The way The Darkness ramps up to it’s supernatural horror combined with the pressing issues the family is dealing with makes it all seem so real. This could be any middle class family in suburbia which makes the movie very relatable and scary.

One of the things I want to say before I end this review is Kevin Bacon is a great actor. In fact there was great acting throughout this movie and it did the creepy scary thing very well. So check out The Darkness when you get the time and enjoy the creepiness.

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