DARKNESS FALLS (2003)
Starring Chaney Kley and Emma Caulfield
With a long and apparently tumultuous production history, "Darkness Falls" seems a lot like a movie that was somehow edited down to such a tiny running time (75 minutes) that it doesn’t really make any sense -- despite a strong opening, and a relatively exhilarating last act. It's also PG-13, which means the gore content is nil.
Set in the fictional coastal community of Darkness Falls
(nice name for a town), the flick opens with a narration outlining the history of the town's legendary tooth fairy. She was Emma Claufield, an old woman from the early 1900s or so, who used to give children gold coins when their teeth fell out, but was then executed for
allegedly murdering some kids. Naturally the old bag put a curse on the community. Her apparition shows up every now and then wearing a white mask and ready to wreak havoc. And, oh yeah – her spirit can't stand the light.
Flash forward to modern times. A boy loses his tooth, goes to bed, and is haunted by an apparition – the now-legendary Tooth Fairy, the spirit of the old woman who supposedly kills kids who lose their teeth. After dodging the Tooth Fairy by staying in the light, he survives the attack. His mother isn't so lucky. She's killed by the fairy, but naturally the boy is blamed for the death.
Flash forward about 10-15 years. The boy has become a man, and his former childhood sweetheart turned lovely adult woman is caring for another boy who is suffering from night terrors involving the legendary Tooth Fairy. She asks the accused mother killer to come back to town to help her kid brother get over his fear of the dark – and of the Tooth Fairy.
Here's where the movie stops making any sense. Suddenly, out of the blue, the Tooth Fairy begins attacking anyone and everyone we know of in Darkness Falls, laying waste to the police station, even killing a lawyer. Why the Tooth Fairy suddenly shows up and goes on a "Jeepers Creepers"-style rampage isn't really explained. But she does – and our hero (Chaney Kley) is the only one in the story that knows how to avoid being killed: stay in the light.
Things finally pick up when the boy, his sister, and our hero take shelter in a lighthouse, following an "Assault on Precinct 13"-like attack by the Tooth Fairy on the police station. These scenes of the films recapture some of the thrills we got years earlier from "Jeepers Creepers." But why is the Tooth Fairy suddenly going ballistic? Why is she killing cops? After 150 years of haunting this town, why is she now on the war path? It feels like this film was chopped way down for some reason, perhaps to get a PG-13 rating, perhaps just to keep the story moving at a fast clip. Whatever the reason, it rendered the plot incomprehensible. There's some great action at the end, and the spooky beginning, but aside from those two pluses, there's precious little to recommend here. Too bad. Nonetheless, the film was a box office hit and sequels are already planned.