Darkness (PG-13)
IMDb; Miramax; Rotten Tomatoes; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; Vudu; YouTube

Well, I watched this on Sci-Fi Channel. I wanted to see it basically because Anna Paquin was in it, and as it turns out, she was pretty much the only reason worth bothering to watch it. It seemed pretty bland, not scary at all, and parts of it didn't make sense. Parts of it were also fairly predictable, though there was at least one twist I liked that I didn't see coming until reasonably shortly before it happened. Of course, the very last twist I didn't see coming at all, but it didn't surprise me or scare me. And then the movie ended.

Anyway, Paquin plays a young woman named Regina, who just moved with her parents, Mark and Maria, and younger brother Paul, from America to Spain, where Mark grew up. I couldn't really tell that it was Spain because the accents seemed rather inconsistent to me, but I could be wrong about that. The film starts 40 years earlier, and we just hear a police detective or someone questioning a boy who's been found, the only one to be found of seven children who'd been kidnapped. The scene is darkness with little flashes of memories that can't clearly be made out. Anyway, like I said... 40 years later, the family moves to Spain. Mark has some disease where he gets sort of epileptic fits or something, and also can have episodes... well, he can lose his temper a bit, but we never see him do anything violent and it never seems to be entirely unprovoked or unreasonable. Though he also sometimes thinks people have said things to him that they haven't. He's being treated by his father, who is a psychiatrist, I guess. Anyway, Reggie gets worried about her dad. She also worries about Paul, who's suddenly scared of the dark for the first time, because... the darkness is different here. Also his pencils start disappearing. (Oooh, creepy!) And um, eventually he starts getting bruises, and Reggie thinks their father may have done it during one of his episodes where he doesn't know what he's doing. Of course, there are other strange things happening, like the lights flickering even though the electrician can't find any electrical problems. Wow.

Of course, Reggie and her friend Carlos (or boyfriend; he seemed sort of interested, but I couldn't really tell about her feelings) also eventually discover stuff about some ancient ritual involving seven children having their throats cut by people who love them. And something about the design of the house her family has moved into, which has never had occupants before, in the 40 years since it was built. And Paul sees children in his room or whatever, sometimes. And Mark finds a hidden room with a bunch of old stuff in it, including a creepy picture he wants to hang up on the wall. And... I dunno what else to say. The motivations behind what was going on sounded potentially interesting, but I don't think it was really explored well enough... then again, my interest in it would be more sort of academic, and would probably detract from what's intended to be a suspense-thriller-whatever. Still, I did slightly enjoy a little bit of the movie, like that one twist I mentioned earlier... the sudden realization of the... suddenly altered motivation for someone to cut someone. But I can't say more about that, as it's a spoiler. Not that it matters.