Darkness Falls

Directed by Jonathan Liebesman

Written by John Fasano, James Vanderbilt and Joe Harris

Starring Chaney Kley and Emma Caulfield

Classification: AA

Rating: *

The house lights dim on Darkness Falls and, what can I say, darkness falls. And never gets up. Pretty much the whole of this unholy horror flick is shot under cover of night, the small-town-in-New-England kind where the woods are deep and the barometer always points to rain. A lucky thing too, since the star of the show is a nocturnal monster who, like raccoons and certain musicians and a drunken premier or two, only gets up to no good well after sundown. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to the Tooth Fairy.

What? Not scary enough, you quibble, doesn't rank up there with the harrowing likes of Count Dracula or Freddy Krueger or half the guys on The Bachelorette. Well, think again, 'cause this isn't the Tooth Fairy of your dreams, the one with the white gown and the wand that turns baby toodles into large change.

Nope, what we have here is the Decayed Tooth Fairy, a nightmarish hag with a rotten temper and, thanks to a century-old affront, vengeance on her psychotic mind. And, fashion-wise, what better way to complete the makeover than a long black cloak accessorized by a white porcelain mask. Tout ensemble, she looks like a really old bat desperate to crash Truman Capote's ball -- frightening, indeed.

Anyway, most of the folks in our small town in New England don't believe in the Decayed Tooth Fairy. The cops sure don't, nor do the psychiatrists, even when they start dropping like flies. Apparently, theirs is a devout atheism. Happily for him, little Michael (Lee Cormie) is a believer. So is his curvy older sister Caitlin (Emma Caulfield), especially late in the proceedings when her skimpy tank-top gets all disheveled and wet -- did I mention that the barometer always points to rain in these scary parts?

But the truest believer is Caitlin's sweetheart, the virile hunk Kyle (Chaney Kley). Having suffered quite the nasty encounter as a kid, Kyle knows a thing or two about the Decayed Tooth Fairy. He knows, for example, that she is deathly afraid of the light. That's why Kyle always carries a big bag o' flashlights, just in case of a power outage. Can't be too careful. Or maybe you can: When the power does go out, darned if Kyle doesn't misplace his emergency bag and, gosh, things get pretty hairy for a while.

For any remaining skeptics among you, rest assured there's no danger of boredom in the ever-screeching frames of Darkness Falls. That's because the Decayed Tooth Fairy has an accomplice here in the form of the Bad Dialogue Fairy. Of course, he (for I think of him as male and short and probably Irish) is blessed with the redeeming gift of inadvertent laughter, and the little fellow never lets you down. Not when he whines, "I'm having a bad day. I just had a dead guy fall on me." And not when he exclaims, "I need to try to get this gravel out of your scalp." And especially not when he wonders, "All this over a fucking tooth?"

God forgive me, but I worship the Bad Dialogue Fairy -- he gets me through these endless nights.