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Horror Movie A Day: AFRAID OF THE DARK (1991) Spider-Man never wins. The bad man comes back.
SPOILER ALERT !!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the first 2009 Horror Movie A Day.
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf, recorded on the home DVR or streamed via Instant Netflix and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my A Movie A Day or A Movie A Week columns there won’t necessarily be connectors between each film, but you’ll more than likely see patterns emerge day to day.]
Today we radically shift gears from the camp of the last few films to a very well-done, cerebral mind-fuck of a movie called AFRAID OF THE DARK.
From the opening shot of a young boy tapping the pointed edge of a knitting needle rhythmically against his thick, coke-bottle glasses while blankly staring off into the distance the tone is set.
There’s something unsettling about the whole movie and it becomes doubly so when halfway through this film writer/director Mark Peploe (who won an Oscar for writing THE LAST EMPEROR) turns everything inside out and suddenly you’re in a completely different movie. It’s an almost Lynchian shift in structure that manages to confuse us without making us feel like we’re lost if you know what I’m saying.
The first half of the movie plays like a good giallo, something Dario Argento would have made in his heyday. Our young lead (Ben Keyworth) lives with his sightless mother in a blind community somewhere in London. He’s a quiet kid, an introvert, an observer. He doesn’t seem to have any friends outside of the blind adult friends and colleagues of his mother.
There’s a rash of slashings in the neighborhood, some sicko is going around with a straight-razor and slicing the faces of the blind women. It’s an Argento blood-bath, nobody is getting murdered, just cut up and terrorized.
Young Keyworth seems to be interested in this and sees every stranger as the possible slasher, be it the window-washer that always whistles a creepy tune or the unassuming locksmith (an early role for David Thewlis). But he’s not exactly playing junior detective. He’s fascinated by this and he finds himself taking the role of voyeur, following some of the blind women home and even going so far as to scare them with his footsteps.
If the movie were only 45 minutes long it’d be a complete gaillo story with a beginning, middle and end that takes the boy on a sort of hero’s journey where he gets to save the damsel in distress. But the movie doesn’t end there and that’s what really sets this film apart.
I’m going to be getting into some spoilers which will ruin the twist, if you can call a plot turn in the middle of a film a “twist.” I suppose you can as I’d certainly call the genre switch in FROM DUSK TILL DAWN a twist. At any rate, I’m going to post the trailer and then discuss the movie in a little more detail. The trailer itself tells you this secret, so from here on out it’s spoiler territory.
The selling point of the trailer was you can experience this film as a story where reality and child’s fantasy can’t be distinguished.
After Keyworth saves his hot, young and naked blind friend from the slasher by jamming a knitting needle through the sick bastard’s eye we’re suddenly brought back to the shot that opened the film.
Nowhere in the opening half of the movie is the boy wearing those thick eyeglasses and as we pull out from a close-up of him tapping his glasses with the tip of knitting needle I was reminded of that fact.
The implication is that everything we just watched was a daydream in this boy’s mind. His mom has perfect vision and the boy is the one going blind, bit by bit. The hot blind girl he rescued is in reality his sister. Much like WIZARD OF OZ everybody who played a part in the first act, from the creepy window-washer to Thewlis’ character, shows up in the real world.
In this reality Keyworth is far creepier, almost a budding serial killer. His failing vision and the isolation he feels is drawing him deeper and deeper within himself.
It’s when the world of the first part of the movie starts spilling over into what’s supposed to be our solid reality that the mindfuck really does swing into full effect.
I wouldn’t quite say the movie’s exciting enough to become a new favorite, but it’s very successful at what it sets out to do namely setting a constant elusively disturbing tone. You don’t ever really know what’s going to happen next or just how far the film is willing to go.
Ben Keyworth carries the movie very well, giving a damn good, understated child performance. It’s interesting that David Thewlis is in the movie because young Keyworth’s performance reminds me a lot of a Thewlis’ acting style. I wouldn’t have surprised me to find out Keyworth and Thewlis were related.
Final Thoughts: AFRAID OF THE DARK is an odd movie that works really hard to get under your skin, not trying to make you jump out of it. It might be a little too slow and bloodless for gorehounds, but for a good moody reality shifting underseen movie it was a great little surprise.
For my recommendation I decided to go with a movie close to my heart, something a grew up with that shares a similar tone with AFRAID OF THE DARK.
THE LADY IN WHITE is a ghost story that can be described as a mystery, possibly a thriller, but it doesn’t feel very much like horror to me, even though it did scare the bejesus out of me as a kid.
This is a great Halloween movie, actually. Maybe I should have saved this recommendation for the October 31st HMAD, but Released in 1988 and starring the young Lukas Haas just a few years off of WITNESS. Set on Halloween in the early ‘60s the movie unfolds like a story Stephen King never wrote. The elements are there… well written kid characters in peril, ghosts and all from the mind of a famous horror author who is returning to his small town home to remember it all for our viewing pleasure.
THE LADY IN WHITE is a real deal movie, beautifully shot and emotionally true. It’s obviously a very personal film for writer/director Frank LaLoggia that I’m sure is more than a little autobiographical.
LaLoggia lovingly captures this time with the help of the great cinematographer Russell Carpenter (TITANIC, TRUE LIES and… yikes, CAMERON’S CLOSET? We’ll let that one slide, Russ…). LaLoggia also captures a sweet and loving family unit headed by Alex Rocco who usually plays Italian tough guys in films like THE GODFATHER or FREEBIE AND THE BEAN. I particularly like the grandparents, first generation Italians who are always arguing half in English, half in Italian.
That’s the King feeling I get off this. The movie’s a supernatural mystery with a real, deadly threat, but the world feels real if not slightly rose-tinted through the glass of loving nostalgia. The characters are alive.
The basic set-up is that a young boy is locked in a coat room at school by a pair of bullies (one of them is played by the kid that was Tom Hanks’ best friend in Big, by the way) on Halloween night. While alone in the room he witnesses the ghost of a young girl who is trapped in a cycle, repeating the night of her murder over and over again.
Haas watches on in horror as this transparent girl is strangled by an invisible force and then carried out of the room, through the locked door. As most ghost stories will tell you, the dead are not to be feared. It’s the living you gotta watch out for.
The murderer returns to the scene that night, face obscured, and tries to pry open a grate. He sees Haas who tries to hide behind his Halloween mask and tries to strangle him to death too.
He’s not successful and as Haas recovers it becomes a whodunit as he tries to let the poor girl’s spirit rest.
Bing Crosby’s Did You Ever See A Dream Walking serves as this film’s theme song and to this day that melody creeps me out. It’s become haunting instead of cheery.
Also keep an eye out for Katherine Helmond in a supremely creepy role.
THE LADY IN WHITE is just a flat out awesome movie that I’m quite surprised isn’t more well known. All the performances are great, the writing’s great, direction’s great, photography is great… it’s all great! It’s movie like this that I hope to see out of Guillermo del Toro and Disney’s DOUBLE DARE YOU label of family-oriented horror films. Seek it out if you’ve never seen it.
Here are the next week’s worth of HMAD titles:
Monday, October 5th: THE PIT (1981)
Tuesday, October 6th: BRAIN DAMAGE (1988)
Wednesday, October 7th: BRAIN DEAD (1990)
Thursday, October 8th: VISITING HOURS (1982)
Friday, October 9th: MACABRE (1980)
Saturday, October 10th: PRIVATE PARTS (1972)
Sunday, October 11th: ROAD GAMES (1981)
One more kid-in-horror flick to get out of the way before moving on. Tomorrow we dig in to 1981’s THE PIT! See you then!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
HMAD 2009:
October 1st: Nothing But The Night
October 2nd: Beware! Children At Play
October 3rd: Cameron’s Closet
Click here for the full 215 movie run of A Movie A Day!
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There is one time when it gets a little hokey, (when the huge hands pushed the mother off the cliff) Other than that the movie is a timeless gem.
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Hey Quint, I must say I'm loving this column. It's fun, well written and just the sort of thing that gets geek juices flowing. I was most pleased when yesterday's Cameron's Closet piece segued into F13 VII. Just what I was thinking. Looking forward to the coming installments.
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Quint, hats off to you, frickin loved this column last year as it gave an excuse to foist classics/gems on unsuspecting victims. Plus, I salute you sir for reviewing "the other" Braindead film which was one of those films that take an hour to convince someone it's actually real and does exist!
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....I'm also doing something like this. Though, I'm doing more than one day, I'm already up to 29. haha And while my reviews are neither as fun or well written or in depth, you can find them here... http://tinyurl.com/y8qeae7
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I'd never heard of thing thing before but it sounds right up my ally, especially if its anything like the elegant, eerie LADY IN WHITE. Keep em coming, man!
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Many scenes are ruined because of the weak effort by the director, who decided to score his own work. The cheapened sounds and terrible cues squander some of the frights that are well-accompanied by a great story.
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He basically wrote Last Emperor, Sheltering Sky, and Little Buddha. The man knows how to structure a story and he handles the tonal shift on this one with great ease.
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It's one of the few films that makes me tense up just from the mention of it. The other big one is Poltergeist, and maybe Devil's Backbone.
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I suggested it last year. It really is a wonderful flick and pretty unknown.
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You're doing great on this series so far. AFRAID OF THE DARK was a movie I exposed TONS of people to in my college days as it was a fave to make people go "Whhaaaat?" who were already paying so little attention to Movie Night because they were baked out of their minds. LADY IN WHITE was a college favorite among the girls that the guys loved for me to put on beause the girls would shriek in terror. Both went over well. I recommend AFRAID and LADY - and I'll even throw in that you should have done a triple-bill here and ended the night with PAPERHOUSE.
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is tripe of the highest order!! did you completely miss the pedophilia ??
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Oct 04, 2009 7:47:24 PM CDT
"Afraid of the Dark" and "Lady in White" are great 80's fun
by blakindigo
—Can't wait to see your review of "Road Games." The late director Richard Frankin went on to do "Psycho 2" which Tom Holland(!)scripted. Gotta love the lesser known gems of the 80's.I feel like watching a special edition of "The Blob" with commentary by Frank Darabont right now. Need some Guinness though…
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sort of similar tone to the original Hitcher. leans more heavily on suspense than gore. good flick.
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I'm going for two a day, because I fuckin' can, although on Tuesday I might be doing three movies with Trick 'r Treat (fina-fuckin'-ly), Creepshow, and Creepshow 2. Gawdam do I love October!
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kicked it off with DEADGIRL, followed by THE MIST (B&W), FINAL DESTINATION 3 (so i'm behind a few years), and THE GATHERING. not back to back, but one (or more) a day. tonight's feature is EVIL ALIENS
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Looks great! Subscribed via google.
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with Quint ripping this off. I thought they were cool on it? In reading the blog it doesn't seem so.
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Zombieland, Trick R Treat, Alone In The Dark and The Entity.
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Why do you subject yourself to these super cheesy horror flicks. Of the ones I've seen that are listed, they are terrible. And the other's I looked up the trailers for look equally as retarded. There is no way I'd waste my time watching these shit bombs!
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yummy! so glad you liked it, cause that makes me a winner too! thanks for getting back to me on the other talkback about "the Home". I guess Dr. Marvin's philosophy does apply to the industry. It'll get done, man. I'd even fund it if I could.
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Hadn't heard of this one prior, so can't add anything, but it sounds great and I will be seeking it out. Thanks!
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But if you want to see real horror-here's a quick link:
It is gay horror and you will never peel it out of your brain for 1000 years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3ZnUBB1QWc
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Yeah, I just went over there. I'm trying to find contact info for Brian Collins. If he's really that upset I'll think of something else to call the column. Never heard of his blog before I transitioned AMAD into HMAD last year. It's not like it's a big jump to figure out how I came up with that name. But if he's got a problem with it, I respect that he started his blog before I started my column and will change it. He doesn't have an email address readily available, so if someone knows it drop it to me. My email is on the bottom of the story.
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Horror game adventures of the golden era.Prisoner of ice,Alone in the dark,Cruise for a corpse,Night of the comet,Darkseed,Gabriel Knight etc.
Damn those were the days. -
a criminally underrated film from the guy who directed The Man who fell to Earth.
btw for the greek visitors of aicn,there is a very good greek site dedicated on bmovies: http://www.b-movies.gr -
it's one of the most heavily reviewed horror fils ever made. You might as well draw our attention to The Exorcist, or The Shining. No, stick to the lesser known schlock, the lost classics, the cult weirdness.
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from what i have read in cine magazines here in greece,and the imdb forums,it is not a very well-known horror movie to the general cine audience,the way the Exorcist or the Shining are.Ok maybe the popularity of the film has changed in the last years (thank you internet),if thats the case then ignore my proposal.
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Loved Brain Dead. Never got around to seeing Brain Damage when I was younger.
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Like I said last year when you did this - I just wish you had called it something else, as it is causing confusion (someone congratulated me on my "new AICN column"), especially when we are covering the same movies (Cameron's Closet, for example, as well as several of your upcoming titles). A Movie A Day: October Horror Edition or something along those lines would have been OK. I don't care about the similarities, as several bloggers do the same thing every October. Also it's a bit misleading to say that you didn't know about my site prior to last October, because when you started your all purpose "A Movie A Day" column in June of 08 (or whenever it was) I recall one of my readers claiming you were "ripping me off" and I came into the talkback to defend you (since I was doing horror and you were doing all movies and thus I didn't find it an issue at all). Either way, if you could change the name this time around it would be great, but if not please call it something else next October. Have fun and enjoy.BC, www.horrormovieaday.comP.S. There's a big "ABOUT ME/CONTACT" link on the right side of my page for future reference.
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anyways, you could call it A Horror Movie Every Day...or something along those lines. Or Quint's Halloween Horror Movie Extravaganza, or HHME.
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I'll do whatever the fuck I want a day or one scary turd a day. got lady in white in the que already but i'm bumping it up. never saw don't look now so thanks for the tip ominus.
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When I clicked on the contact all I got was a profile. I seriously spent half an hour trying to find your email address today, but I confess jetlag and some 12 hours in the air might have rendered me slightly retarded.I think I'll just revert the column back to AMAD then. I'll start that with today's movie.
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Soylent, there's a character limit for my headlines and I like having the quote to go with the movie title. I think just acknowledging it's the Halloween special of my AMAD column is fineOminus, I very well might throw in a look at Don't Look Know as a recommendation title, but can't really cover it as the focus of an AMAD column because it's a title I have seen and, yes, it is indeed great. A nice slow burn of an atmospheric horror movie.
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Mr Collins seems to only be reachable through a variety of social networking bollocks, and doesn't post an email address anywhere obvious.
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