When a movie is imported from overseas, usually it is an extraordinary one that many people have loved. Be it \Shaun of the Dead,"" ""Hero"" or ""Zatoichi: the Blind Swordsman,"" they are movies that generally receive universal acclaim. This is why the importation of ""Darkness"" from Spain seems so odd-it is not a good movie. Featuring weak acting, a confusing plot, unlikable characters and an ending that trips all over itself, ""Darkness"" never comes close to being watchable.
""Darkness"" is a very simple story, which has been done numerous times before-a house causes its residents to go crazy and do crazy things. It is ""The Shining,"" but in a house instead of a hotel. Sure, the filmmakers try throwing in unique twists, such as childhood trauma being a contributing factor to the appearance of ghosts, but these concepts are not entirely fleshed out and end up feeling out of place and downright awkward.
Silliness is not the only thing holding ""Darkness"" back. It suffers tremendously from its tone, which feels muted. There was no gore in parts where there should been plenty of it. And the movie did once contain buckets of blood-when it was released in Spain two years ago, it sported a fancy R rating. The journey to America knocked the film down to a PG-13 rating and neutered it of the bite it may have once had. Gore does not automatically a good movie make, but the gore of the Spanish version was essential to the ending. Its excision nonsensically muddied the American version.
The problems just keep getting worse when considering the acting. The movie stars Anna Paquin and Lena Olin, who are two actresses not really known for giving outstanding leading performances. They are known for ably filling their roles in the background. However, they play the main characters and prove incapable of stepping up to fill these roles. The only real solace Olin and Paquin can take out of their roles is they are not nearly as horrible as Iain Glen, who is absolutely miserable in his role. Providing another reason to call ""Darkness"" a bad knock-off of ""The Shining,"" Glen does a horrible impression of Jack Nicholson. Several of his scenes are painful due to Glen's over the top performance-Nicholson can pull that performance off, Glen is nowhere near his level.
The filmmakers for ""Darkness"" felt the need to throw in a plot twist as well. They must have figured it worked so well for M. Night Shyamalan's films (excluding ""The Village""), it might work for this one as well! It did not. The plot twist is forecasted hideously early in the movie and several times. When the twist comes, the response is, ""That's it?"" The plot twist was just another successful horror clich?? they tried using that ultimately failed.
""The Darkness"" is bad. There is no way around this statement. It is horribly conceived, written, acted and the plot twists are extremely predictable-nothing in the movie works. It makes little sense for this movie to be imported, when so many other good foreign movies never get an American release.
