DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK

Little Sally has just arrived at the airport to go and live with her father Alex and his new partner Kim. He is a restorer of old properties, she an interior decorator and together they have just finished setting up an old Victorian mansion where they will live in view of a future sale. Sally, however, is sad and while wandering near the house she finds a basement isolated from the rest of the house by a walled-up door. Here the girl frees some strange creatures who insistently ask her to play with them. In reality, the creatures, which have haunted the house for centuries, have very hostile intentions and are fond of children's teeth and bones. Guillermo Del Toro, the new guru of fantasy cinema, has long championed the idea of being able to make a new version of "Don't be afraid of the dark", a TV movie directed by John Newland in 1973 and never arrived in Italy. It seems, in fact, that the Mexican director, particularly attached to the 70s film, began working on this remake already in the second half of the 90s, when he started working with Miramax/Dimension. At first, it was a simple screenplay, which remained stalled until 2009, when Del Toro received the right push from producer Mark Johnson to get back to the project. Del Toro, however, reserved for himself the role of co-producer and screenwriter (along with Matthew Robbins), leaving the direction to a newcomer, who was chosen in the person of the cartoonist Troy Nixey, from whom the production was impressed by the fantasy short film "Latchkey's Lament". This is the genesis of "Non avere paura del buio", a fascinating horror film that takes us back to a consolidated childish imagination, but does so with a narrative freshness that positively strikes for a product similar to the thresholds of 2012. It strikes both because it is a remake not too distant from the original, and because in recent months there has been a bit of abuse with stories that bring horror within the four domestic walls, with ghosts and demons to scare as per the more classic tradition. "Non avere paura del buio", on the other hand, appropriates all the topoi and clichés of the case but reworks them in function of a film that fundamentally talks about something else, about loneliness and cruelty. The fundamental importance of the Blackwood Victorian mansion will not be lacking, which is not only the place of events, but also a character, capable of telling a terrible past that emerges from the cracks, the tunnels and the mysteries buried in the interstices of the building. Nixey, who comes from the world of comics, gives the film a visual style very anchored to his dark graphic world, which always and everywhere prefers shadowed images (every corner of the house is poorly lit to favor the action of the creatures), dim light (the music box lamp) and a modest and autumnal tone (the mantle of dead leaves that surrounds the Blackwood mansion) particularly coherent with the story told. Naturally, the well-recognizable imprint of Del Toro hovers over everything and it shows. In some aspects "Non avere paura del buio" reminds "Pan's Labyrinth" and not only because there is a girl at a topical moment of her life as the protagonist and a labyrinth in the garden where to refuge from the problems. In Nixey's film, there is a fairy-tale atmosphere like in much of Guillermo Del Toro's works, there is a clear reference to the fantastic tradition made of fairies, elves and gnomes and the almost gollum-like way of expressing the little creatures reminds a well-consolidated childish fairy imagination. The monsters of "Non avere paura del buio" do not scare like a first-era Freddy Krueger might, but rather they are more annoying and bothersome. But that is exactly the intention! The "fairies" of the film must capture the children's curiosity, make them playmates, so that they can strike them in the simplest way and devour their teeth and bones. In this, the "fairies" could recall the narrative archetype of the imaginary childhood friend and the film's screenplay suggests this by insisting on the lack of trust that adults have regarding Sally's stories, on which accusations weigh due to her condition as an extremely introverted child. Fortunately, however, even under this aspect "Non avere paura del buio" follows a personal path and rather than focusing on the overused stereotype of the imaginary friend linked to the bogeyman or (more recently) the ghost, it concretizes everything in these little monsters that are a real, lethal threat and with a retro taste (impossible not to recall the little demons of "Don't Open That Door" and "Subspecies - Vampires"), albeit realized - very well - in computer graphics. "Non avere paura del buio" does not lack those two or three moments of guaranteed scare and the cast convinces, starting with the young Bailee Madison ("My Fake Wife") and a rediscovered Katie Holmes, who stand out over a somewhat anonymous Guy Pierce. A nice surprise for a horror a bit out of the ordinary, capable of creating atmosphere and stimulating the imagination with suggestions typically linked to the world of childhood.