Don't Be Afraid of The Dark; Before and Now

[wayzim]

!973, Dan Curtis was King of TV Horror and everybody was rushing about trying to do their own version of Dark Shadows.
One of the more interesting efforts was this scary little film; directed by John Newland and starred Kim Darby(the original True Grit, and memorable Trek episode 'Miri.' ) and Jim Hutton(also a John Wayne costar in The Green Berets and Hellfighters )
Little Kim(Darby) played a nervous wife named Sally who moves to an old house with her Husband Alex and almost immediately a creepy gardener warns Sally off certain home renovations - specifically the fireplace in an old study.
Naturally she doesn't listen.

This leads to one of the most underrated but seriously spooky efforts of the time with a payoff often duplicated but never matched. The scariest moment was watching Sally getting dragged along the floor by ... something(s) and - see this movie.

Flash forward to 2011, and we have a remake, directed by Troy Nixey but written by Guillermo del Toro so we have hope.

Unfortumately the novelty of the original plot is severely undercut by making Sally a child, turning the more interesting points of the first film into yet another Kid Threatened By Ghosts.
It's too bad, since nervous flightly little Kate Holmes would've made a great Sally, but I don't have any hope for any real scares from this version.

I could change my mind, but that ending from the first film is really hard to beat. It so freaked me out as a kid.

Wayne Z

Patience! Patience! We've all the time in the world.

[rongravy]

Del Toro, eh?
Not sure if I should see the remake before I see the original. I had never seen the original Crazies until after the remake, and I think it helped. Not sure, as I can't undo it and see it the other way. Sounds interesting either way. I'm game.
What do you suggest?
Sometimes when I see the original version of something, and then I love it, I end up hating the newer version.
Kind of like The Office. The U.S. version sucks donkey balls.

[wayzim]

Del Toro, eh?
Not sure if I should see the remake before I see the original. I had never seen the original Crazies until after the remake, and I think it helped. Not sure, as I can't undo it and see it the other way. Sounds interesting either way. I'm game.
What do you suggest?
Sometimes when I see the original version of something, and then I love it, I end up hating the newer version.
Kind of like The Office. The U.S. version sucks donkey balls.

Ya, I mean I don't want to go on and on about how cool I thought the original movie was, and the fact is that Don't be Afraid is almost a culty film next to treasures like Trilogy of Terror (Dan Curtis, with Karen Black playing multiple roles. )
I think if you see the new version, strip away the splashy visuals and see how the story holds up on it's own, since the 70's effort could never hope to compete on FXs.
I also think the sub genre of frustrated feminism within this earlier period ( which Romero's films cover well in his earlier trilogy, less so in Jack's Wife ) when done well(obviously) ratcheted up the tension that much more.

There was another overlooked TV movie of merit in the same time frame, this one starring Barbara Eden, called The Stranger Within (74). It's part Rosemary's Baby, part Exorcist, and a whole lot of Bizarre as Eden's Painter finds her pregnancy leading her into some really wacked territory.
We - the audience, are kept guessing until the end, and even then we're never sure what exactly it's all suppose to mean.

So, back to Dark. If you manage to see the remake, post what you think.

Wayne Z