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Kodie Bird True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Steve Pulaski Darkness Falls gets its name from a fictional town of Massachusetts and opens with the legend of a widow named Matilda Dixon. Matilda was a well-respected woman of her community, and gave the children gifts whenever they would lose a tooth, quickly earning the reputation as the town's "tooth fairy." Later in her life, a bad house fire horribly disfigured her face, which she went on to cover up with a porcelain mask. With that, when two young schoolchildren went missing in the town of Darkness Falls, the adults were quick to blame Matilda and wound up hanging her. Using her dying breath, Matilda put a curse on the town, and after her hanging death, the two missing schoolchildren returned home unharmed. Matilda was buried shortly after and the whole town kept it an ugly secret.After this prologue is revealed, the film follows Kyle (Chaney Kley), who witnessed his mother's murder when it occurred and decides to return to his childhood home to see Michael (Lee Cormie), the younger brother of his love interest Caitlin (Emma Caulfield), after Michael claims he is being stalked by Kyle's mom's killer. The supernatural entity has apparently made life a living hell for both Michael and Caitlin, and Kyle seems be the only one with the potential to nullify the spirit's powers and bring an end to her murderous rampage.Darkness Falls is as schlocky and as stupid of a horror film as you can get. At barely seventy minutes long, carrying a whomping fifteen minutes of agonizingly slow end credits in order to hurdle the film past the acceptable eighty minute mark of a feature film, it has a notably difficult time conjuring up a story, let alone explaining it, and introducing characters we must be sympathetic towards for the film's entire runtime.This is a difficult film to watch because, while it sets up an interesting story of lasting paranormal activity and trauma in the prologue, it has a hard time iterating what exactly the spirit of Matilda Dixon is supposed to do, let alone wants, when it comes time to show Kyle and Caitlin's struggle to defeating it. Films like this, which are obviously meant to stand on their own and not carry the weight of an elaborate franchise with multiple plot-threads and story lines, need to find ways to cleanly summarize their stories and characters' intentions without getting too tied up in narrative ambiguity. Unfortunately, Darkness Falls doesn't really know the direction it wants to take with its story, nor does it really want to show us what is haunting Kyle and Caitlin or put much effort into creating a slowburn story in order for some suspense to build up.Ultimately, it winds up being a forgettable and seriously unexciting slog through a series of clichés that only further the film into a state of artificiality, and with a PG-13 rating, there's little Darkness Falls can do to feel edgy or very horrifying in place of its threadbare and convoluted plot. The film was directed by Jonathan Liebesman, the South African man who would go on to direct the prequel to the remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre before directing a series of action films at the dawn of the 2010's, with Battle: Los Angeles, Wrath of the Titans, and the third film reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. With his track record, Liebesman feels to leave so much as a directorial imprint, or even indent, on a film that, from the get-go, feels robbed of a personality and a cogent identity, let alone a clear storyline. It's the kind of film that would've potentially worked as an artfully constructed and drawn graphic novel, but the approach it takes for the screen is completely uninspired, with no character interest and depressingly little horror etched into a story that should've dripped with fear.Starring: Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield, and Lee Cormie. Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman.

jessegehrig Nope. Movie about monster hiding in shadows works on paper not on film. Cause whatever fabulous ideas were laid upon the page they could not be brought out into film. Instead its a horror movie where the bad-guy is the dark. Seems like a childish premise but it could work, I'm not going to take that away from the writer of the screenplay, but hey dude, they don't do it workable, they do it stupid. It seems like a premise that could play out well with some humor, but no, no , its like really serious, y'know, like somebody was all like " No! This is really important! Were gonna do another take and this time...FOCUS!" Just a great big hunk of crap.

Meg V I'm sure it's not the worst horror film of the Aughts, but that's not saying much. The cinematography reduced itself to one cool shot, given away in the first ten minutes of the movie, then descended into unwatchable mediocrity. At least it wasn't shaky-cam. Chaney Kley gives the most stoned performance of his career. I think he's trying to look tired, but he just looks really baked. (for a great performance of "tired", see Christian Bale in The Machinist). He was way better in Legally Blonde, which feels hard to believe. The whole cast lacks energy and conviction.Darkness Falls sets up a whole stupid world where the Tooth Fairy is scary (no) and then doesn't follow any of its own stupid rules. The shocking lack of logic is just infuriating. The writing is rote, and follows formula so closely that even a casual observer can see the bones. God-awful.

jet66 When film makers need to crank up the sound effects volume to get a physical alarm response from the audience, you know the rest of the production is thin gruel. And this gratingly loud movie marries some of the weakest writing with some truly lazy acting, direction, and producing (for example, some kid who looks ready for his driver's test is cast as a 10-year-old). The very premise - a disfigured old woman who was once kind to children is lynched, curses a town, and comes back from the dead to kill people that happen to see her - is complicated, contrived and derivative of better movies. Don't waste your time unless you're truly wasted.