sugar-bear
OK. This movie starts out with a young boy. His mother is blind, his father is a policeman. While on vacation from school, he accompanies his mother to a class where they teach blind people how to knit. There is a man on the loose who terrorizes and slashes blind people with a razor. Then we see the little boy rescue his blind friend by stabbing the man who was about to kill her. Then it turns to the little boy getting dressed for a wedding. He has on thick glasses and it turns out his mother isn't blind at all. His blind friend becomes his half sister and everyone loses their roles. So by then I am so confused. This movie was good but only if the plot wasn't so confusing.
stevencrozier
Some people may be put off by this film's unconventional plotting and exposition -- their loss. The director does an excellent job of portraying the degenerating mental and emotional state of a little boy who is losing his vision (and his status as the only child of his parents). As befits the depiction of the interior life of a child, there is very little by the way of explanation or analysis -- everything the boy sees or thinks he sees is treated as real and we're left to figure it out and assign meaning to it. Would that more movies had this much confidence in their subject matter and their audience. This is a horror movie in the best sense of the word, exploring the terrors and tragedies of real-life experiences as only film can.
Eric-1226
**Spoiler Alert: Possible explanatory SPOILERS ahead, necessary for my review**"Afraid of the Dark" is a movie about a young British boy, Lucas, who suffers from an eye condition which, if not corrected with a surgical operation, will certainly cause him to go blind. The movie shows how he mentally fades in and out of his "real" world, often times creating a hellish imaginary world that only a young, impressionable, and, namely, SCARED little boy could create.I saw it once, didn't understand it, and didn't much care for it, as it seemed a confusing, unentertaining hodge-podge of an art-house film – although I did enjoy the dark, moody, atmospheric feel to it. I also liked the London row-house setting. It is a quiet movie, a virtually humorless movie, with a rather somber, at times slightly eerie soundtrack.Interestingly, I had recorded it on tape, and, not wishing to re-record something over it without giving it at least another chance, I decided to watch it again… surprisingly, it was more compelling viewing the second time through, and I'm glad I saved my tape. It helps to understand that the movie combines healthy doses of artistic license as well as portrayal of events that are purely a child's fantasy, which, upon first viewing can be so confusing and off-putting that I can see why the average viewer might not like this movie. You will spend a lot of time wondering what's real, and what's not.But give it a chance. You may have to watch it twice, like I did, but you will be rewarded. Just remember that many of the "twisted" scenes in the movie are not real: they are scenes that merely reflect a nightmare world as concocted by the hyper-imaginative mind of the scared young boy, Lucas, who is terrified of his upcoming eye operation/possible blindness. So I must give the film great credit for not only being imaginative, but also very sobering, as it is a thought-provoking glimpse into the frightened mind of a child faced with possible blindness.
jamsam-2
i am still not sure what the hell this movie is about. i guess the boy was afraid of becoming blind and began imagining all sorts of strange things. this does not explain why he wanted to kill his new baby brother , however , or the unrelenting boredom found within this film. while watching this movie you will wish you were blind so you did not have to see this experiment in futility. skip this steaming pile and opt for anything else at the video store ..... anything else.
