The Darkness (2016)

The Darkness: Directed by Greg McLean. With Kevin Bacon, Radha Mitchell, David Mazouz, Lucy Fry. A family unknowingly awakens an ancient supernatural entity on a Grand Canyon vacation, and must fight for survival when it follows them home.

“With some talent in the cast, a cool cover, that it did look fairly eerie and that boasted one of the best concepts for any film seen recently by me, u0026#39;The Darknessu0026#39; potential was pretty big. Also appreciate the horror genre and have liked films in similar vein, so watched u0026#39;The Darknessu0026#39; oddly enough with the genuine want and intent to like it. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt does pain me to say it, and it is going to sound repetitive being a common thing found in recent viewings and mentioned, but u0026#39;The Darknessu0026#39; managed to be a big disappointment for me and from the sounds of it many others. Big potential, executed in a way that while not terrible rarely rose above mediocrity overall. There are moments and good things, but they were too far and between and not enough for a film that did little with such a good idea. It may annoy people with me saying this a lot recently, but it is hard to not say anything when wastes of good ideas and talent is a bugbear of mine and something that has featured rather too heavily in my recent film viewings.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eKevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell are reasonable leads and David Mazouz is more than up to their level. So the acting is better than average on the whole and somehow manages to rise above the material that was not worthy of them.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eu0026#39;The Darknessu0026#39; does have an atmospherically spooky look, an eerie music score and a few unsettling moments. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eUnfortunately, the creepiness and suspense not just doesnu0026#39;t come consistently, there is nowhere near enough of either. There is an over-reliance on scares, mainly of the jumpy kind, but few come off effectively. Again a few unsettling moments, but too much of them are easily foreseeable and derivative.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFurthermore, too much is over-explained, there is far too much exposition (much of it clumsy and rambling) and too much is given away too soon. The characters arenu0026#39;t very interesting, not to mention very clichéd that it makes the distinct lack of originality even more obvious, making everything really predictable. The script is lazy and underwritten, with too much reliance on the scares, which are not strong enough to come over successfully, the ending is a very u0026quot;thatu0026#39;s it?u0026quot; one and the intrusive and obvious sound effects telegraph the outcome of the scares early on in the build-ups. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn summary, not terrible but mediocre and a waste of potential. 4/10 Bethany Cox”