STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN AT NIGHT:
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and its small-screen Predecessor

– Kier-La Janisse

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It’s been two decades since Guillermo Del Toro bought the rights to remake a little film that scared the bejeezus out of him as a child – and now, the hotly anticipated demonic fantasy Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark finally makes its way to the big screen with first-time feature film helmer Troy Nixey behind the camera best online generic levitra and Del Toro himself as producer and co-writer.

Almost a companion film to Del Toro’s own fantastical Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark features a child at its core – in this case Sally (Bailee Madison), a young girl navigating through her parents’ divorce who is reluctantly sent to live with her father (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) in the creepy old Victorian house they’re renovating. Feeling neglected and lonely, Sally is the perfect conduit for tiny monstrous entities that dwell deep within a mysterious pit in the basement, who lie in wait for lost cialis cheap delivery souls such as hers.

Comic book artist Troy Nixey won accolades all over the festival circuit in 2007 for his CGI/live action dark fantasy hybrid Latchkey’s Lament, and his vision for Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark explores the gothic in all its psychologically decrepit glory: a little girl trapped in the wilderness of an old house as unfamiliar creatures roam behind the walls and under the floorboards, beckoning her to play with them forever …and ever. As with Del Toro’s earlier films, the fantasy is a means of exploring childhood dissociation and emotional distress. This is indeed Del Toro’s stamp, as the original Sally is a suburban housewife suffering from very different emotional problems – namely sexual frustration and dismissal by her busy husband – issues that were everywhere discernable in post-counterculture horror.

John Newland’s original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark aired on October 10, 1973 as part of ABC’s popular Movie-of the-Week series, which had been running strong since 1969 and producing some of the most solid genre pictures of the era – films like Curtis Harrington’s How Awful About Allan (1970), The House That Would Not Die (1970), Crowhaven Farm (1970), Steven Spielberg’s seminal early gearhead-horror film Duel (1971), Haunts of the Very Rich (1972), Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973), Satan’s School for Girls (1973), Dan Curtis’ The Norliss Tapes (1973), not to mention Curtis’ small-screen phenomena The Night Stalker (1972) which introduced the grizzled vampire-hunter Carl Kolchak to the world.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

But despite the pioneering and radical films that flanked it on all sides in the ABC lineup, the original Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark remains one of the most beloved and terrifying programs ever made for television. Kim Darby (the mom from Better Off Dead) stars as a passive, nervous housewife who moves into a big Victorian buy cheapest viagra online house with her husband, who is often away on business. While redecorating she opens up a brick-up fireplace, against the caretaker’s adamant but cryptic warning to leave it be. But once the seal is broken, Sally starts to see little creatures everywhere – on the stairs, in the bathroom. Her husband thinks she’s crazy, and her best friend thinks she’s just not getting enough attention (i.e. getting laid enough). But Sally’s new friends are out for blood. A big creepy house, scary whispers, dark lighting, a downbeat ending; the classic horror tenets are used to maximum effect in this essential gem of 70s horror cinema.

Director Newland was already a vet of the genre by this point, having helmed and hosted the early 60s supernatural reality show One Step Beyond, as well as episodes for Boris Karloff’s Thriller, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery and The Sixth Sense.  And like Nixey, he understood how to light a horror film, using shadows to create visual unreliability and anxiety.

The new Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, updated with contemporary thematic concerns and FX that expound significantly upon the original budget-limited creature designs – while maintaining the pervasive terror of the original – promises to be the stuff of nightmares for generations to come.

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DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (2011) has its Canadian Premiere August 4 at 9:10pm in the Hall Theatre, preceded by the Strong Brothers’ short film THE DUNGEON MASTER. More info on the film page HERE.

About the author:

Kier-La Janisse

Kier-La Janisse is a film writer, publisher, producer, acquisitions executive for Severin Films and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Creative Arts at Deakin University. She is the author of Cockfight: A Fable of Failure (2024), House of Psychotic Women: An Autobiographical Topography of Female Neurosis in Horror and Exploitation Films (2012/2022) and A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi (2007) and has been an editor on numerous books cialis generic drug including Warped & Faded: Weird Wednesday and the Birth of the American Genre Film Archive (2021) and Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s (2015). She wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentary Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: A History of Folk Horror (2021), and produced the acclaimed blu-ray box sets All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror (2021) and The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle (2023).