Time to very painfully review a film that I had high hopes for. Let's start by reminding everyone that this is a remake of a 1970's made for TV movie. One problem that I've had with the movie industry for a while, attaching a name, such as Guillermo del Toro's, to a movie title to draw people in. Let's be clear Del Toro wrote and produced this film, It's not truly a Guillermo del Toro film and his name is only there to draw high hopes from people, like me, who enjoy del Toro's work.

Walking into the theatre I was expecting something akin to Del Toro's Devil's Backbone (2001) or even a mixture of dark images and fantasy like…

I never expect much from a horror film, but when the brilliant Guillermo del Toro is invovled you can't help but be a little enticed.

The story, co-written by del Toro, is quite well developed and has some strong background footings, but without del Toro behind the camera it all comes off as fairly mediocre; the most disappointing thing being the creatures themselves, which is usually a strong factor of his films. If there were less of them and they were bigger in size then I think this would have terrified me, but alas, their rat-like features ruined it for me almost completely.

What did impress me, however, was Bailee Madison, who is superb. Child actors are rarely any good…

¨We want you! ¨

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark is the latest scary movie to once again fall short in what I consider a dying genre. Horror movies nowadays suffer from very poor scripts, the stories are really predictable because we`ve seen so many horror films, and they all rely heavily on special effects. Very few horror films actually manage to scare audiences, and most simply try to shock. At least this film isn`t gory, but there aren`t any scares either. The main problem I had with this movie were the villains: small Gremlin looking fairies. They just weren't scary at all; they never seemed to present a threat. They are more funny looking than anything else. What really…

There's something inherently suited to the mind of producer Guillermo Del Toro in this remake of a 1970s TV movie, namely the notion of a child's perception of the fantastical being warped into a hazardous negative. However this potentially intriguing facet, rendering the movie a sort of anti-"Secret Garden", gets lost in translation, as debuting director Troy Nixey struggles on nearly every front to deliver anything more than mediocrity. Nixey comes from the world of graphic novels, so it's odd to find his feature so visually muted and unremarkable, the film-maker even struggles with the basic mechanics of haunted house ambiance. The script (which Del Toro helped scribe) and the adult performances don't help matters either,but what really sinks this…

Give me Pan's Labyrinth any day.

The first 20 minutes of this movie had me, I was wondering why the film had got so many reviews. The characters had interesting enough stories, and there was a good atmosphere and feeling of dread. But then it starts to turn silly, and they show the 'monsters' in such detail that it starts to feel a lot like 'The Spiderwick Chronicles', but with blood.

I liked the ideas in the film, and thought the effects were good etc, but it wasn't scary really. There was one scare that made me jump, but it was in the trailer, so that was spoilt, but about halfway through it turns into a fantasy film and almost…