FILM SYNOPSIS
Blackwood Manor has new tenants. While architect Alex Hurst (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) restore their Gothic mansion’s period interiors, Alex’s young daughter Sally (Bailee Madison)—neglected by her real mother and brushed aside by the careerist father—can investigate the macabre history and dark corners of the estate. Spurring Sally’s investigation are the voices—rasping whispers who call out to her from the basement, who promise her understanding and friendship, who are so very hungry and would like to be set free. When Sally gives in to her curiosity, she opens a gateway into a hellish underworld from which an army of beady-eyed, sharp-clawed monsters emerge, small in size but endless in number: the homunculi. Confronted with the horror that now threatens to taker her life and destroy her family, Sally desperately tries to warn the whole house, but there’s just one problem: no one believes her. Will she make them understand in time, or will they become another chapter in the centuries-long horror story of Blackwood Manor?
Based on the 1973 telefilm that Guillermo del Toro believes to be the scariest TV production ever made, DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK was co-written and co-produced by del Toro and directed by Troy Nixey. Akin to PAN’S LABYRINTH, DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK focuses on a young girl’s struggle against menacing and terrifying forces.
OVERVIEW
Once upon a time, more than a hundred years ago, the only son of the renowned naturalist and artist Emerson Blackwood disappeared into the inky blackness of their basement ash pit. Blackwood soon discovered, to his horror, that his boy had been abducted by an ancient race of creatures who dwelled in the subterranean depths beneath his home. Shortly after,, Emerson vanished himself, disappearing down a rabbit hole from whose unfathomable darkness he would never emerge.
The horrific story of the Blackwoods’ fate—and the ancient evil behind it—has lain buried in that basement ever since, sealed off like a mausoleum and left undisturbed. That is, until now. Several new tenants have just moved into Blackwood Manor: Alex Hurst (Guy Pearce), an ambitious architect and divorced parent with big plans for his new home; Kim (Katie Holmes), Alex’s beautiful young coworker and current live-in girlfriend; and Sally (Bailee Madison), Alex’s estranged and lonely young daughter.
While Sally’s father directs the crews of contractors renovating the historic building, Kim reaches out to the little girl who so reminds her of a younger self. But Kim learns the hard way how unwelcome her sympathies are when would-be step daughter Sally coldly rejects her. Sally prefers to spend her friendless hours exploring the dark corners and lonely byways of the labyrinthine manor, losing herself in the twists and turns of the sprawling estate and of her own imagination—despite the protests of the gruffly concerned caretaker (Jack Thompson) who cryptically alludes to hidden dangers.
It’s on one of these solo expeditions that Sally first hears the voices: rasping, scratching voices who whisper her name, who offer her sympathy, who only want to be her friend. “Come to the basement,” the Siren-like voices call to her. “There are children down here…” But when Sally unlocks a door that was meant to stay forever sealed, she unwittingly opens an ancient fault line from which monstrous hordes of hellish creatures emerge. Beady-eyed and sharp-clawed, small in size but endless in number, these trolls have been known since ancient times as the homunculi. As first Sally and later Kim and Alex stare with horror into the dark abyss, the dark abyss stares back into them–and threatens, literally, to swallow them up.
DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK was produced by Mark Johnson and the internationally acclaimed writer-director Guillermo del Toro (PAN’S LABYRINTH, HELLBOY). The story was adapted from the teleplay of the same name by Nigel McKeand, which was first filmed and broadcast by ABC television in 1973. Executive Producers are William Horberg, Stephen Jones, and Tom Williams. The film is the first feature directed by comics artist Troy Nixey (creator of the critically acclaimed Trout and a former illustrator for Neil Gaiman and Mike Mignola).
The cast includes Guy Pearce (THE KING’S SPEECH, L. A. CONFIDENTIAL, MEMENTO, HBO’s “Mildred Pierce”), Katie Holmes (BATMAN BEGINS, WONDER BOYS ), Bailee Madison (BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA, JUST GO WITH IT) and Cannes-award winning actor Jack Thompson (BREAKER MORANT, STAR WARS: EPISODE II – ATTACK OF THE CLONES).
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