Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
A teenage girl moves into a remote country home with her family, only to discover that the gloomy old house has a horrifying past that threatens to destroy them.
Darkness is a Spanish-American horror co-production that leans heavily on haunted house and family-in-peril tropes without offering much fresh perspective. The plot involving solar eclipses and ritual sacrifice has intriguing potential but becomes muddled and unsatisfying as the film progresses. Acting is competent but unremarkable, with Anna Paquin and Iain Glen doing their best with thin material. Cinematography has some atmospheric moments — the dark, oppressive visual palette works reasonably well for the horror genre — but it never transcends into anything truly distinctive. The film's mythology around the ritual sacrifice and sacred architecture is its most interesting element, but it's underdeveloped. The ending is widely criticized for being confusing and anticlimactic, failing to pay off the buildup effectively.