Fear of the Dark (2003)

8/10

The title explains the concept of the movie well. The movie begins with a baseball flying through a basement window. One of the young boys goes down into the dark and creepy cellar. In a prank pulled by every young boy across America, the other kids lock the boy in the cellar. Shadows begin to move around accompanied by weird, threatening noises. As the boy pleads to be let out a shadow rears up behind him.

A few years later we meet up with Ryan, who is deathly afraid of the dark. We meet his older brother Dale Kevin Zegers from the "Dawn of the Dead" remake), who thinks Ryan just needs to work out his irrational fear issues, but he does see some odd claw like scars on Ryan's shoulder. We also briefly meet Heather (Rachel Skarsten from "Jake Brooks: Monster Hunter"), Dale's almost girlfriend. The parents promptly leave the two brothers alone for the evening, setting the table for our tale. As Ryan is watching TV, the channel keeps flipping to a showing of "The Evil Dead" (!). That just does not bode well. Yup, the lights next start acting up, a thunderstorm starts, strange noises are heard.

As the weird occurrences keep ramping up throughout the night, Dale begins to think that maybe his brother is not crazy after all. Heather shows up a couple of hours into the blackout. Will she be enough to calm the brothers' fears?

No spoilers for this movie. It's too good to ruin.

There are plenty of jump scares throughout, but what really makes the movie is the atmosphere. There is constant tension created by a subtle, eerie background score. Subtle audio and visual FX abound. Acting was spot on. Pacing was just right.

There was no violence or gore, except for a comforter that bought the farm. This was a spooky film, one of the best 'there is something in the dark' I have seen. Watch this at night with no lights for full effect. This is a very good scary movie. Highly recommended viewing, and worthy of a buy.