The Fear of Darkness (2015)

Maeve Dermody was good in this. The cinematography was pretty good. You know a movie doesn't have much going for it when a reviewer compliments the photography. There is nothing new here. Its the usual run of the mill paint by numbers affair using the run of the mill paint by numbers stock standard horror/thriller tool of "it was all just a dream" thing. Boring.The lead was good. I see good things in her future. Granted its a tough role and not easy to carry an entire film by yourself, but she didn't really have much to work with here. I sort of feel sorry for her. Hopefully better screenplays will come her way soon.

I know other reviews might have questioned the merit and pace of this film - but I liked it. It kept me interested and it becomes stranger as it nears the end. Some people might question this films intention and believe it's useless or superfluous film. But it is a thinking person film with loose ends. I'll have a go with what i think happens at the end and others can consider their own conclusion. Sky is told that Sarah is not real and she has been in treatment for 10 years for a drug psychosis.The treating Dr says "she's nearly there" and they drug her to rid Sarah from her mind. Unfortunately Sarah is the only protective factor in sky's mind - Sarah knows the darkness wants Sky and has always frantically protected her. So the treatment appears to work and Sarah is dispelled. All is good until Sky looks in the mirror and then appears consumed by the darkness - to me it appears she was possessed by it as she leaves the hospital. She heads back out to the house where it all began and where the darkness resides. On the way someone or something stops to help her in the truck and we are lead to believe the darkness is within her or within the truck. She leaves the truck and goes toward the house and further into darkness OR there is another way of viewing the ending - that she never left the hospital but just moved deeply into psychosis (the darkness) after having her protective factor removed and we see sky's "dark" thinking just like we have seen her reality and world right through the whole film. Anyway - it made me think and I liked this film. i particularly liked that Aussie scenery and the birds on the water and mood of the film.

This film is all "blah blah blah" and nothing happens. The script is dreadful and you can really see they had trouble working out how to end it all with a tedious little twist that you saw coming a mile away. There were just too many scenes were people were talking at each other for what was 10 minutes every scene with a couple of little "frights" (and I do mean LITTLE) in between. By half way through I got bored and started fast forwarding all the walking bits because if people were;t talking they were walking and it all seemed so padded out. The acting was pretty average and even Aaron Pederson who is usually pretty good felt like he'd just walked onto the set and didn't know what film he was in. Honestly, it's all a bit of a dog's breakfast. EXCEPT, the one thing that is actually very good is the cinematography, so obviously they paid someone good to do that. Overall, it's just a pretty looking borefest.

Partially investigative drama and halfhearted thriller, The Fear of Darkness is a movie focused on a disturbed character, who may or may not be involved in paranormal activity. Horror movies tend to use this premise, but the main character Sky is neither charismatic nor enigmatically appealing. Despite much effort on delivering scientific based narrative, in which there is abundance of them, it eventually falls on insipid twist without accomplishing much.For this type of thriller to work, the movie needs intriguing characters or having good chemistry between the cast. It has none of those. Sky (Penelope Mitchell) has two rigid expressions, utterly confused and overblown panic. There's barely any range on acting aside from looking distraught the entire time and it doesn't help establishing any nuance for personality. Meanwhile, the supposedly nurturing psychiatrist Sarah Faithful (Maeve Dermody) is plain and too formulaic of a character to stand out.The movie moves agonizingly slow, switching from between possible haunting and the psychologist handling the case. There's actually a bulk of the runtime spent panning across bedroom without anything happening, not to mention there are interviews that feel redundant. Script either bombards the audience with heavy pseudo-science mumbling or constant shouting of the same question.It chooses to bring medications or suggestive trance for the strange behavior, and at times it almost looks like it's going somewhere with these plot devices. However, it only amounts to basic mystery spectacle, lacking any substance for all the flamboyant talk. It does produce good soundtracks overall, they sound like something out of fantasy flicks and admittedly a pleasant surprise.Only the most avid fans of mystery thriller would find some enjoyment here, because for all the psychological narrative, it only amounts to tedious dialogues.