Darkness Falls (2003) |
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Darkness Falls (2003) |
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| BUY IT |
| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Horror |
Main Menu Audio & Animation Audio Commentary-Filmmakers Audio Commentary-Writers Deleted Scenes-7 Featurette-The Legend Of Matilda Dixon Featurette-Making Of Storyboard Comparisons-4 Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Anger Management, xXx |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2003 | ||
| Running Time | 82:09 | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (53:00) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 2,4,5 | Directed By | Jonathan Liebesman |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Sony Pictures Home Entertain |
Starring |
Chaney Kley Emma Caulfield Lee Cormie Grant Piro Sullivan Stapleton Steve Mouzakis Peter Curtin Kestie Morassi Jenny Lovell John Stanton Angus Sampson Charlotte Rees Joshua Anderson |
| Case | ? | ||
| RPI | $39.95 | Music | Brian Tyler |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Hungarian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Russian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) |
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| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.40:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | Unknown | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English Spanish Dutch Arabic Croatian Czech Greek Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Polish Russian Serbian Slovenian Turkish English Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary English Audio Commentary Spanish Audio Commentary Dutch Audio Commentary English for the Hearing Impaired |
Smoking | No |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | No | ||
Darkness Falls, set in the fictitious town of the same name (ask yourself, who in their right mind would name a town "Darkness Falls" anyway?), is based on the "true" (ahem...yes...truue) legend of the Tooth Fairy. Over 150 years ago, an old woman in the town became well known to all the children, as she would give them a gold coin whenever any of their teeth fell out in return for the tooth itself. Somewhat suspicious of the old woman, the townsfolk use a turn of events as an excuse to hang her, and with her dying breath she places a curse on the town and all the children in it. Cut to a few years ago, and we find the Tooth Fairy carrying out her promise in the house of a young Kyle Walsh. He peeks, and as revenge, the Tooth Fairy claims his mother's life, and he is sent to a foster family, away from his sweetheart Caitlin Greene. Cut to the present day and Caitlin (now played by Buffy The Vampire Slayer actress Emma Caulfield) is worried for her younger brother Michael (an excellent performance from young Australian actor Lee Cormie, affecting a flawless American accent) who has become terrified of the dark, and is showing similar signs to Kyle from all those years ago. After a frantic telephone call, Kyle (now played by Chaney Kley) shows up to help Michael and Caitlin escape the wrath of the Tooth Fairy.
The sad part about this movie is that it actually works for about the first 35 minutes. The set-up plays very well as an atmospheric creepy horror film, but from about the 40 minute mark on it all starts to fall to pieces. The major problem is that the movie cannot decide what style it wants to be, switching alternately between atmospheric, creature feature, and action. The result is that the atmosphere is ruined by the other elements, while the film does not have the budget to pull off either of those with any real amount of polish. It might have worked had it been going for cheesy creature-feature from the get-go, but after forty odd minutes of relatively successful suspense, to have an obviously fake creature simply hanging in the air and wailing just doesn't gel. The climax of the movie is no better, and the final confrontation between the heroes and the Tooth Fairy features some of the worst digital effects ever put on film.
The truly annoying fact is that Darkness Falls could have been so much more. As revealed in both commentary tracks, this film looks piecemeal because it is. The script went through so many variations that even the writers have a hard time remembering exactly which story elements come from which idea. Each one of the ideas they were working with would have been interesting, but the combination of them all has lead to a horrible mess that is difficult to comprehend. Essentially, this film needed to pick one idea and stay with it - atmospheric horror, action horror, even cheesy creature feature can all make a good film if done properly, but the combination of all three just doesn't work. In the end, it is impossible to recommend this film to anyone, not even as a rental (although as it was shot in Australia and features a number of faces known from other productions, at least we can play "where have I seen them before").
Presented at 2.40:1, this transfer is 16x9 enhanced. I was not able to ascertain if this was the original aspect ratio, but from the framing, I suspect that it was probably a 2.35:1 transfer (which would mean that yet again a transfer has been slightly cropped to make it 2.40:1).
Sharpness is good without being spectacular - there is enough fine detail present, but not any more. Grain is a constant background presence, and occasionally becomes a major problem, most noticeable from 17:00 to 17:05 on the helicopter shot. Shadow detail is probably the best aspect of this transfer, and is extremely good, showing plenty of depth in the (many) dark scenes. There is no low level noise present.
Colours are generally good, although they do appear slightly washed out from time to time. In that regard, the darker scenes fare better than the bright, showing richer colours with more vibrancy.
There is some pixelization present during the heavy grain periods, particularly from 17:00 to 17:05, but apart from that compression artefacts are absent. Aliasing is infrequent in its appearance, but when present can be quite distracting, such as on the buildings at 14:31 and the blinds at 18:43. There are no film artefacts present.
The subtitles are generally accurate, and do enough to get the story across. They are well paced and easy to read.
This is an RSDL formatted disc with the layer change taking place at 53:00 during Chapter 20. It is extremely well placed in a very dark scene with almost no camera movement or sound. I only spotted it as it breaks a word during the second commentary track.
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There are six audio tracks present on this disc. The first four are the original English dialogue and dubs in Spanish, Hungarian, and Russian, all presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 (at 448Kbps). The final two are the two English audio commentary tracks, both presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo (at 192Kbps).
Dialogue is clear and easy to understand at all times. Likewise, audio sync is spot on throughout the transfer and is never a problem.
The score is credited to rapidly rising young composer Brian Tyler, and while it is very much a genre track, it still manages to be good enough to sound original. It certainly does a better job than the film itself at conveying the sense of fear and dread of the characters.
Surround presence is extremely good. Featuring sound design by Skywalker Studios, this surround soundtrack pushes the limits of the 5.1 format, with plenty of split directional use, and many full 360° panning effects - all that on top of the usual score carrying duties. The only downside is the notable lack of ambient noises during more dialogue driven scenes.
The subwoofer is used quite extensively for various explosions and the like, and generally makes its presence felt. It is not the most dynamic use of subwoofer to grace DVD, but it is certainly not shamed.
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NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;
The video quality is passable - there is too much grain (especially for such a recent movie), the image is too soft, and yet it still suffers from aliasing from time to time.
The audio quality is superb. The people at Skywalker Sound have done it again and created an excellent soundtrack.
The extras are the real highlight here, and it is for them that I encourage anyone who saw this at the theatres - especially if they disliked it (pretty good chance of that...) - to rent this disc and listen to the commentaries. It is an experience that will lead you to forgive what happened here, and even look forward to the next output from this creative team.
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-555K, using Component output |
| Display | Loewe Xelos 5381ZW. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Onkyo TX-DS787, THX Select |
| Speakers | Rochester Audio Animato Series (2xSAF-02, SAC-02, 3xSAB-01) + 12" Sub (150WRMS) |