October 4 - Darkness Falls

Now we're talking, an honest-to-god horror flick on TV. Well, premium channels, but still, I mean, I think it was cinemax, does that even count as a premium channel anymore?

Darkness Falls is what I call a good, old-fashioned horror flick. There's a monster, there's a hero, there's the girl, and there's hundreds of dead bodies in the mix. Again, no nudity, but the chick is kind of cute, the actress, I think her name's emma something? She played Anya on Buffy the vampire slayer! Yea, I was a fanatic buffy fan back in the day. Seen every show! Erm, sorry, getting back to Darkness Falls.

The movie starts out quite well. Everything you need to know about the movie is explained in the first few minutes, essentially. One nice thing about this movie, is the monster actually goes after kids! You don't really see that in films, there's some unspoken rule in movies that say kids almost always survive. I don't mean teenagers, of course. Any teenager who's smoking, using drugs, or having wanton sex is pretty much dead meat from the get-go. I think it's a stupid rule, since the snot-nosed little brats could use a good horror scare to keep them in line, if you want my humble opinion. I know, and people say I'd be a horrible father? I don't get it either.

So here's how it starts. Poor little... uh... Kyle, yes, that's it (thanks IMDB) loses his last baby tooth, and according to legend, the Tooth Fairy is a psychotic bitch who's sworn to steal the last tooth of every child forever... but don't you DARE look at her. She got horribly burned in a fire before she died and now she wears a mask and, shall we say, she's a leeeeetle bit touchy about people who actually see her face. I don't know, you'd think psychotic old dead things would understand that they aren't too pretty anymore, but eh. I had an old girlfriend once who was a psychotic old dead thing, but in her case it was part of her charm. Erm. Anyway, enough about me.

So Kyle loses his last baby tooth, and the tooth fairy comes to collect, but kyle, who just asked his hot teen girlfriend out (Emily Browning, and yes I am perving a little bit because she was 15 in this movie but she's 22 now and turned out pretty sexy), just can't sleep, probably because he's so damn excited he might get some, stays awake to catch the tooth fairy in the act of taking his tooth. And he brought a flashlight. Oh, Kyle, Kyle, Kyle. You poor, hormone-addled teen boy. What were you thinking? So Kyle sees the tooth fairy's face, and the tooth fairy immediately tries to kill the shit out of him until he dies from it. Unfortunately for Kyle, his screams wake mommy, and mommy gets in the way, and while kyle hides in a well lit room, the tooth fairy tears mommy to shreds.

See, here's the thing, the Tooth Fairy HATES light. Won't go into it at all. Thus the movie title... Darkness Falls.

So then it's 12 years later. Kyle is living in an EXTREMELY well-lit apartment, having recently been released from the insane asylum they sent him to for killing his mommy. Yea, good policework there, Lou. The poor kid's hiding in a bathtub when they find him, Mommy's torn to bits and there's not a drop of blood on kyle's pajamas, but he did it. Riiiiiiiiiight. So Kyle's in the midst of taking his anti-psychotic meds and tranquilizers and checking his flashlight collection, and he gets a call from his ex-girl. See, she's got a little brother, and her little brother recently lost a tooth, and now, he won't go to sleep, and he's afraid of the dark, and won't kyle come and tell her how HE got over his fear of the Darkness? Well, HELLO hottie girlfriend, but he never actually did get over that. But hey, Kyle never really did tap that either, so it's off to see her and face his greatest fear...

THE DENTIST! Wait. No, that's a COMPLETELY different horror movie. My bad.

Darkness Falls is an awesome movie, in my opinion. It passes the rewatchability test. I swear I've seen it like every other month since last Halloween and I keep watching it. I'm not sure whether it's seeing Kyle face his fears, seeing him get the girl back, or thinking I could probably seduce the tooth fairy given half a chance, but this movie works pretty well. There's very few slow parts, and what ones there are serve only to highlight the gut-wrenching terror of the tooth fairy flying in out of nowhere and ripping someone to pieces in the dark. It's pretty much a running battle with the darkness from beginning to end, and I'm not going to say another word, just experience the fear for yourself. It's probably best to watch this movie in the dead of night, right before you go to bed, to get the full effect.

I watched it while the sun was still up. I'm not crazy. I'm already scared of the dark! I need to sleep tonight!