They - 2002
Directed by - Robert Harmon

Darkness Falls - 2003
Directed by - Jonathan Liebesman

I can be a horror movie snob sometimes, I admit it. Maybe you've noticed. It seems most of the people I know who love horror movies judge them by a different set of standards than other films. Horror movie fans tend to be very forgiving, because frankly, most of what's out there at any given time is so awful that when you find something that's just okay, it's actually an improvement. But I usually hold horror movies to the same standards I hold all movies. For example, it seems to me that only in horror movies are characters allowed to get away with doing things that are either ridiculously stupid, or just don't make any sense at all. There's something crawling around out in those woods, something big, and it makes a wet gurgly sound - would you go out there with a flashlight to investigate? Would anybody? If so, I don't know any of these people. All the people I know would put as much distance between themselves and those woods as they could in as little time as possible. But what do they do in horror movies? Gotta go see what's making those noises out there in the dark. Morons! I shout at them, but do they listen? Never. Out they go. And, of course, it always ends in bloodshed. Roger Ebert calls it the Idiot Plot - the entire movie hinges on characters doing idiotic things. I usually find that very annoying and am typically hard on horror movies populated by idiots.

But sometimes you've got to just sit back and let a horror movie be a horror movie. Part of the function of the horror movie is to show us the things we would be too afraid to seek out in our lives. Somebody has to go out there in the dark and look around and confront whatever it is that's making those ugly sounds, and it sure as hell isn't going to be us, right? The question is, do we want to follow this person (usually a woman)? When she heads for the woods, do we just roll our eyes? Or are we afraid for her? Because that's what a horror movie should do - make us feel afraid.

These are good times for horror movies, because they're not just teenage body counts anymore. Filmmakers are bending over backwards to scare us again. Imagine that! They're making horror movies that are low on gore and goo and high on tension, dread, and shocks - movies like They and Darkness Falls.

These movies have quite a few things in common. In fact, they're similar in so many ways, they could almost be the same movie. Each movie opens with some powerful scares that vividly recall childhood fears of something in the closet, under the bed, or in the dark. They both follow characters who, as adults, are dealing with childhood traumas, and in both, the darkness is dangerous and it's important to stay in the light. Both involve "night terrors." Each movie includes a scary sequence in an elevator, and a shot of a shower curtain being pulled off its rings. Both feature supporting actors from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both are flawed but entertaining - one is better than the other - and at times they're terrifying in a way horror movies haven't been in awhile.

They opens with Billy, a little boy who knows something is in his bedroom with him. "It's just thunder, sweety," Mom says. But he knows, as we do, that she's wrong - parents are always wrong about that. (I'm 40 years old, and I still hate the dark enough to sleep with a light on.) She tells him he's safe as long as he stays under the covers. She leaves the door open a crack (as if that'll help), and the boy is left alone in his room with his fears, and whatever is making those strange noises in the dark. Nineteen years later, Billy (John Abrahams) is a heavily medicated basket case who tells his friend Julia (Laura Regan, who resembles a young Swedish boy), whom he's known since they were both five years old, that the night terrors they suffered as children were more than just childhood fears. He claims that creatures from some other world took him as a boy and marked him - he has what looks like a puncture wound on his hand that is now becoming infected - and they've come back for him. He tells her they stay in the dark, and they affect things - the lights, the telephones, they even make babies cry, because babies and toddlers can sense them.

Julia, of course, doesn't believe him. She's a little too hard to convince, too, even as weird things happen all around her. She is eventually swayed when horrible things happen to two of Billy's other friends who also bear the same mark and suffered from night terrors as children. Julia's boyfriend Paul (Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Marc Blucas, who seems to have only one facial expression) doesn't believe her, of course, and her therapist suggests it's all brought on by the trauma of recently witnessing a friend commit suicide - he also points out that she saw her father kill himself when she was a child. Julia, who's studying to be a psychologist, agrees with him for awhile - too long for my tastes - but she comes around eventually.

The nameless creatures in They really do stay in the dark. Director Robert Harmon knows that what we can't see is a lot scarier than something out in plain sight, and we never get a good look at these monsters. We get glimpses of them now and then - they crawl around crab-like and made ugly chitinous sounds - but we never see them well, and that makes them very scary.

Darkness Falls opens with a brief prologue which, like the opening of They, sets up the movie's rules. It explains that over 150 years ago, there lived in Darkness Falls an old woman named Matilda Swinton who was beloved by the town's children. Whenever they lost a tooth, they would take it to her and she would exchange it for a gold coin, and for that reason, they called her the Tooth Fairy. After being horribly burned in a fire, Matilda became extremely sensitive to the light and only went out at night, and then only while wearing a porcelain mask to cover her disfigured face. When two children disappeared, the people of Darkness Falls wrongly blamed Matilda and lynched her. Before dying, Matilda cursed Darkness Falls and promised to return. It's said that the Tooth Fairy will come back for a child's last baby tooth - and the child, too - and she will kill anyone who sees her face. After the prologue, we see a young boy, Kyle, in his bedroom at night, and he's just lost his last tooth. When he tries to tell his mother the Tooth Fairy has come for him, she doesn't believe him, of course. She pays for her disbelief in a pretty scary opening that the rest of the movie never lives up to.

Twelve years later, Kyle (newcomer Chaney Kley, an unrepentant mumbler) is a heavily medicated basket case who lives in Las Vegas, where there's plenty of light. He returns home to help Michael, the little brother of his old flame, Caitlin (Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Emma Caulfield). Michael is experiencing the same night terrors that Kyle had as a boy. He knows the only way to help Michael is to keep him in the light where the Tooth Fairy can't get him. But of course, everybody thinks Kyle is loopy, so no one believes him. Not at first, anyway.

They is one of those Wes Craven Presents movies. I've come to see the words Wes Craven Presents in front of a movie title as a threat. But with They, Wes Craven Presents a fluke, because it's much better than, say, Wishmaster or Dracula 2000. It has a sneaky script by Brendan William Hood, and Harmon's pacing is steady as he skillfully creates a sense of dread that builds until we're biting our nails. Julia is a bit of an idiot at times and does things that are infuriatingly stupid. For example, when running from the creatures and trying to stay in the light, she goes down into the subway - I don't mean just to the subway station, but down into the subway. Yeah, that's where you want to go to avoid the dark. But I was willing to follow her because the movie hooked me early on.

While They builds leisurely, Darkness Falls flies by at a breathless pace. Once it starts rolling, the action is almost non-stop. But the speedy pacing can't cover the movies flaws, which are more numerous and less forgiveable than those in They. Director Jonathan Liebesman sets the bar pretty high with that terrifying opening, but the script by John Fasano, James Vanderbilt, and Joe Harris (from a story by Harris) fails him. After clearly setting up the rules in the prologue, the script goes on to break them throughout the movie. It's established in the beginning that the Tooth Fairy only comes after children who have just lost their last baby tooth, or people who see her face. But a number of people get picked off who fit neither description, but just happen to be convenient monster fodder. Horror movies only work if they follow their own rules. Some horror movies don't bother to set up any rules, so anything goes - those are usually the kind that are made quickly and cheaply by people more interested in making a fast buck than making a good horror movie. But if a movie clearly sets up rules at the beginning, I expect it to follow them. They bends its rules a little - it doesn't have to be too dark for those monsters to show up - but Darkness Falls simply ignores its rules altogether.

Its production values are high, and it's never boring, but sometimes it inspires unintentional laughs. Everyone in this movie has such bad luck with lights and electricity that, after awhile, it becomes funny. They established in the beginning that the creatures effect all things electrical, so when lights suddenly flicker out, we know why, and we're filled with dread. So many lights flicker out in Darkness Falls that it starts to take on the flavor of parody. On top of that, it suffers from a weak, though action-packed, ending. They, on the other hand, knocked me out of my seat with its ending - it is quite simply glorious, and made me feel, for a moment, as if the '70s had returned (the DVD includes an alternate ending to They, which I found flimsy in comparison to the ending chosen).

What I admire most about both movies, flaws and all, is their solid sense of purpose. They aren't interested in winning any Oscars or pleasing the critics, they just want to scare the hell out of us, and both succeed to varying degrees. Both movies suck us in because they allow our imaginations to participate. In Darkness Falls, we don't get a good look at the Tooth Fairy until the very end, and in They, we never get a good look at the creatures. What we can't see with our eyes our mind conjures up, and it's always much worse than anything a movie could show us in broad daylight. Harmon and Liebesman know this, and they use it well. Both directors clearly have a great deal of affection for the horror genre, and I look forward to more work from both of them.

They and Darkness Falls may not be perfect movies, but they are most definitely horror movies, and both are entertaining - they would make a great double feature. They are a sign that filmmakers are once again interested in truly scaring us rather than simply grossing us out. It's been apparent for awhile now, and these two movies help confirm it - the horror movie is back

Darkness Falls

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