How does a movie that's only 75 minutes long have pacing problems? Somehow Darkness Falls manages. Act I proceeds at about average speed, normally if unenjoyably, and somehow stumbles directly into Act III, which then manages to drag on uninterminably. So the structure is kind of like this:
•Act I.
•First two-thirds of Act III.
•Middle 10-minute part of Act III.
•Another two-thirds of Act III.
•Fairly nonsensical special effects.
•Credits roll.
Darkness Falls devotes the least time to villain development of anything in memory, guarding against Unrefuted Champion status by positioning exactly two minutes of perfunctory, pretty much unrelated exposition at the very opening of the flick. Considering the overall length of the movie, this comes to an impressive two and two-thirds percent of screen time devoted to bad-guy development, which is probably a solid half of the time devoted to protagonist-development - so the percentages might be about right. Too bad the movie is awful. On the yardstick of recent movies about kids who see stuff that comes back to haunt them fast-forward ten-or-so-years later but nobody will believe them, Darkness Falls falls a distant second to They, and lest that sound too complimentary to either film, let it be clearly stated: They stinks.
Rating: D- (Darkness Falls: flat)
Reviewed by Matthew Abrams