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Synopsis: Regina and her family have moved to a remote country house in Spain. As her family settles into the house, strange occurrences begin to happen. Her younger brother begins to show signs of abuse and is obsessed with the way the darkness under his bed consumes his colored pencils. Her father is recovering from a "condition" and begins to show agression towards his family, all the while spending time exploring the darker nooks and cranies of the house. Her mother is indifferent to the strange things happening in the house. Are her fathers's "episodes" the result of what happened to him in his childhood--an abduction that has never been completely explained? Is her father abusing her brother, or are his bruises being cause by the ghosts that seem to be haunting the house? And who is the strange man watching the house from across the street? There is an eclipse of the sun approaching. The last time there was an eclipse, Regina's father underwent his ordeal...

I suspect that diminished expectations are to blame for this, so bear with me. I had a great time at the Miram-ax version of Darkness. I had more fun at this movie than I had any right to have, because even as I watched it, I knew that I shouldn't be enjoying it. I should have been outraged at the blatant thievery going on in the movie--it takes a lot from The Shining and The Amityville Horror and The Ring and Rosemary's Baby and The Sixth Sense, et alia, after all. But I wasn't. In fact, I have this sneaking suspicion that the borrowings one finds in this movie are all intended as an elaborate ruse. It sets up a long series of deliberately transparent cliches only to subvert them entirely during the last twenty minutes of the movie. Writer/Director Balaguero seems to be aware of the fact that the audience for horror movies has been programmed to expect certain things when specific stock elements are assembled in front of them, so he sets these elements into place only to rampage off in an entirely different direction at the end of the film.

The movie starts out as a Ring rip-off, but it ends up in the universe of Lovecraft. Even if this isn't entirely successful--and it isn't--I'm willing to be forgiving. The biggest influence on the film isn't any of the other films Darkness is pilfering for material, it's Ramsey Campbell. Campbell is one of the most important and prolific writers of horror fiction, so it comes as a bit of a shock that Balaguero's previous film, Los Sin Nombre, is the first film ever made from Campbell's work. Campbell's shadow hangs over Darkness, as well, with its transposition of the yawning gulfs of Lovecraftian horror into the interior landscapes of dysfunctional people. It's an intensely subjective kind of horror, and I sympathize with people who look at something like Darkness and shrug it off. At the very least, there is a broad vein of unexplored possibilities in the Campbellian horror story, though it's possible that movies aren't a good medium for them. Darkness, for instance, is only conditionally successful in the attempt (or a conditional failure, depending on your point of view.

In any event, there is an absolutely crackerjack moment late in the film when a photograph that previously had three people in it now only has two that puts me into a forgiving mood. This is the sort of image that transcends the limits of plot and performance. It's a scary moment almost independent of its context. The film has an apocalyptic feel in the end that also puts me in a forgiving mood. The end of all things is a purview that the horror movie is well equipped to examine, though it rarely does. I wish, however, that Balaguero and his cohorts hadn't committed the film's biggest blunder. Balaguero clearly doesn't have a feel for the English language. Because he has a tin ear for the language, his English-language actors are adrift. This film features Lena Olin's worst performance, and Anna Paquin isn't far behind her. This film may work enormously better if you turn on the Spanish or French language track on DVD.

But, as I say, all of this may well be the result of diminished expectations. A word to the wise.....