Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Directed by: Troy Nixey
Written by: Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins
Full credits at IMDb

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is a Gothic haunted-house movie (or a haunted Gothic-house movie?) that very, very closely follows the tropes established by all of its forebears (if we're listing some, don't forget The Orphanage, also produced by Guillermo del Toro)—except its monsters are super campy but its tone is super serious, like Gremlins without a single wink or smile. What a huge mistake. Anyway, what relevance do haunted-house movies have now? If there's a modicum of intelligence in their design, they can't help but comment on our housing situation, right? If this movie does any business—and that's a big "if"—it'll probably be because it tapped into Americans' new fears of their homes, brought on by the foreclosure crisis. In this remake, the house—or, rather, its hell-deep foundation (the mortgage?)—tears its family apart, but also brings it closer together, much like a defaulted loan can, depending on the circumstances.

Keep reading my conversation with Benjamin Sutton at The L Magazine


Watch the trailer: