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Sally (Kim Darby) proves to have "True Grit" in the
face of terror in the made-for-TV movie "Don't Be Afraid
of the Dark". One of a series of a series of popular TV
movies made in the 70's, "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" followed
in the steps of "The Night Stalker", "Killdozer" (still
not available on DVD) and other ABC TV Movies of The Week
that would essentially now be considered "high concept"
horror films. "Dark" is being remade with producer Guillermo
Del Toro (who like me grew up on these flicks as a kid and
it clearly influenced his style of filmmaking) at the helm
and Guy Pearce starring. ***
Sally and her family (her dad is played by the late
Jim Hutton a marvelous character actor) inherit and old
mansion from distant relatives (never a good sign). They
begin renovating the place and Sally finds that the cellar
might be the perfect place for her own little art studio.
As part of the remodel she ignores the advice of the caretaker
(played by "My Three Sons" star William Demharest) and tries
to get the fireplace in working order thereby releasing
these creepy little creatures that look a bit like shrunken
heads corssed with radishes. These things want to claim
Sally for themselves and dad and step mom (Barbara Anderson
from "Ironside")believe that Sally's losing her mind until
they find evidence that can't be argued with. ***
If you watched "Dark" as a kid growing up in the early
70's you were terrified. This was as good (aside from "The
Night Stalker") as TV movies got. Using the studio backlot
gave these made-for-TV movies a lot more production value
than your average American International Pictures release
at the time (although AIP was making a serious bid for respectablility
with horror films starring Vincent Price often made overseas
to increase production values and lower costs). While the
scares weren't explicit, they were there and the films were
often moody and creepy looking with nice lighting, direction
and solid acting. Director John Newland who learned the
ropes directing episodes of "Twilight Zone", "Star Trek"
and "Fantasy Island" does a solid job with the scares. Newland
was the credited director of "Crawlspace"( which had some
uncredited work by the late Buzz Kulik) but never really
broke through to feature films (although he did do a couple
features early in his career) after a long spell as a character
actor. Newland does a nice job of keeping the level of tension
and keeps the creatures mostly in shadow which is wise given
that the actors playing the roles are clearly wearing rubber
maks--albeit exceptional looking masks. Writer Nigel McKeand
got his start writing for Irwin Allen's "Voyage to the Bottom
of the Sea" and continued to work on "Twelve O'Clock High"
and penned some of the better episodes of "The Waltons".
His script is crisp, direct and keeps the suspense coming
even if some of the twists are a bit predictable. ---
Image & Sound:
This is part of Warner Archives' burn-on-demand DVD/download
titles. The website sent out three of these titles for review
to increase the buzz for their service. The film hasn't
been restored. Colors are a bit faded which isn't a surprise
but detail is surprisingly decent given that the film was
given a no-frills transfer. Compression artifacts are kept
to a minimum and since the film runs about 75 minutes (pretty
standard for 90 minute TV movies at the time). ***
The film looks relatively clean with a nice presentation
although dirt and grit occasionally pop up, Warner has done
a decent if minimal job of sprucing this title up. The real
reason they are probably releasing these on home video has
more to do with the fact that many of these titles will
no longer be protected under copyright and it's less expensive
for them to do this service than to give it a full blown
DVD release. Licensing it out to an independent would make
sense as well but then Warner would only get the licensing
fee. ***
Sound was a bit murky at times and a bit of compression
applied to the mono soundtrack or EQ might have made the
dialogue clearer. The soundtrack does what it is meant to
do but doesn't quite have the depth that a well restored
film ight have. ---
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