The Dark is based on a book called Sheep. Well it is a supernatural thriller set in Wales. Clearly the film-makers did not think that the promise of a film where the ultimate evil are represented by our woolly friends would get bums on seats. I am not sure if such a generic title works though either. There is a current spate of horror spooksters which all seem to revolve around parents relationships to their children. Throwing ghosts and the beyond into the mix are supposed to represent some sort of ultimate evil. They seem to be a response to the J-Horror trend, the Japanese films which spotted that spooky kids were really spooky.
However the Dark makes a couple of errors. Spooky in children seems to reside around eight year old boys and girls. Teenagers are not spooky. Whilst the film does have a good and well thought out first hour (even to the extent of making sheep scary) it somewhat over-eggs the pudding in the last third, giving us twist after revelation. A Don’t Look Now where the kids can be brought back from the dead, and an idea of a “one in, one out” policy on death are genuinely good ideas – and Maria Bello plays the distraught Mum with the requisite amount of spunk (spiralling into madness a touch too soon maybe). But when the last five minutes contain three separate twists, you stop caring. And Sheep aren’t that scary…