A family returns from a Grand Canyon vacation, haunted by an ancient supernatural entity they unknowingly awakened and engages them in a fight for their survival.
Not the greatest horror of all time… not by a longshot… It did have some fairly good special effects, and an interesting base story. It’s not often you see a horror based on Native American folklore. It wasn’t a total waste of time. And that’s really the nicest thing I can say…
With that being said. I’d be pretty hard pressed to watch this one again.
The biggest issue I have with “The Darkness” is some very common tropes in PG-13 horrors, involving children. One of the parents sees that something is going on, while the other parent is in denial. BUT, in this case, they seem to do a flip-flop in the next scene… then they’re both on board, then in denial again.. it’s just very bad writing.
The daughter has bulimia. Don’t bother remembering that – because it has nothing to do with the plot and could have been left out entirely.
The magic YouTube video. What is that? Well, there is an old trope in Hollywood called “The Magic Negro“. This is usually a black character who has all the answers for the white leads. (click this link for a list of examples). Well they find the Magic Youtube Video.. this video tells them exactly what is going on, and how to end it. However, they dont watch the entire video right away, no… that would be too easy.. they watch it a few times, and every time, it explains what they should do next. Perhaps if they watched the entire thing, they could have save us half of the movies run time.
Although it did have some moments, I honestly had to fight to keep myself from turning the movie off, it was painful for me to watch.
