Roses Have Thoughts

There are some films that despite being packed to the rafters with cliches and without too much guessing you can predict exactly the route that the plot will take, but you can’t help but love them anyway, Darkness Falls is one of those movies, it may not be a cinematic classic, but in my view, it’s not too bad.

Unless you’ve spent time researching the folklore behind the creature, you’ve probably never really thought about how creepy the idea of a creature that comes into your room at night and takes former body parts from under your pillow actually is. Luckily for me, director Jonathan Liebesman and his screenwriting team realised this and were able to develop it into a decent, if a little run-of-the-mill horror film backed up with a high enough budget to keep it looking good 20 years later.

As with most supernatural horrors, there needs to be a back story, one with lashings of gore and sorrow to let you know each of the motivations of each character, Darkness Falls has that in spades, Elderly widow Matilda Dixon is a spinster who gives children treats in return for their baby teeth, but when two children go missing, the townspeople burn her at a stake, only to realise she was innocent, this causes Matilda’s spirit to come back and haunt the town ever since, (far-fetched I know, but entertaining).

Just any store is destined to become. The tale of Matilda became nothing more than folklore and eventually, people stopped listening to the warnings and that’s where the story starts off.

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• 
  The Boys From County Hell (2020)
  A Witty and Gory Irish Horror-Comedy

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Produced at a time when there were quite a few reasonable horror films coming out and Darkness falls itself isn’t badly made, it runs at a good pace and it’s shot well. The film ran the risk of getting lost slew of other mid-budget popcorn horror movies that came out around the early/mid-’00s, the kinda film you put on teenage sleepovers and everyone jumped out of their skin every time there was a jump scare or gruesome kill, however, there’s something about Darkness Falls, that’s stuck with me all these years later. So much so, that I often find myself thinking about the film when turning off a light or in a darkened room.

Part of the reason for this is down to how interesting the character of Matilda is. On the one hand, she is unrelenting in her hunt for blood, but, on the other, she’s a damaged individual who was falsely accused, just as so many poor souls were during the various witch trials, though I would have liked the characters to have delved deeper into her past, or the numerous deaths involving children that have plagued the town over the years.

So if you’re in the mood for a reasonable horror film, with a scary villain, good graphics and a scary twist on a beloved children’s tale, this is the perfect film for you.