ThiefHott Too much of everything

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

bandw I asked myself what kind of comments I could make on this movie without having them contain spoilers. It is a challenge and the following paragraph is what I could come up with.This movie is a thriller, but don't expect a thrill a minute. It has an austere feel, with even pacing punctuated by moments of horror. There are scenes that made me wince, scenes that I found repugnant, and a couple of scenes that made me gasp. But, as with most movies in this genre, the tension builds in anticipation of the intense scenes; the music aids in creating this tension. The action is seen primarily through the eyes and imagination of eleven-year-old Lucas (Ben Keyworth) who is rather withdrawn and reactive. How you respond to the one major plot twist will determine whether you think this is an interesting movie, or whether you think it is confusing with enough improbabilities and plot holes only to irritate.**Spoilers here** The revelation mid-way that what we have seen are dreams or hallucinations that Lucas has been having in response to his potentially going blind give meaning to the title beyond what one initially thinks. I knew only what I had read in Maltin's book before seeing the movie, but the mid-story revelation was not a total surprise, since we had been living in an unreal world until then. There were never any indications of normal life going on - an unreal world where no cars were on what should have been busy streets, and no people to be seen but those directly involved in the scene at hand. Lucas transforms his fear of the surgeon's scalpel into the razor of a serial slasher praying on blind people. His mother is blind (signifying her inattention to Lucas' agony?) and his father is a policeman who is unable to locate the slasher (signifying his impotence to deal with Lucas' problem?) In the final episode of this first-half mad sequence Lucas tracks the slasher down and kills him in a symbolic attempt to exorcise the eye surgeon from his life.After that catharsis we supposedly return to the real world, but things get a little confusing then. We come to feel that not only has Lucas been driven to fantasy by his fear and anxiety but perhaps he has also been driven a bit mad. Children can certainly respond in exaggerated and irrational ways to perceived threats (well, adults can too), so I could believe the first half as that kind of reaction, but in the second half, when Lucas hallucinates in real time, I began to question his sanity. I suppose fear and anxiety can drive one to madness, but the way Lucas would drift in and out of reality (usually being in when he had his glasses on and out when not) struck me as borderline schizophrenia and I believe that that is a more organic disorder than a response to fear and anxiety. But, in the final scene, after the operation, Lucas seems to have returned to normal, even questioning if he had killed the neighbor's dog. So, go figure.If there is a message to be taken from this it is that people should try to be a little more in tune with what is going on in the minds of others. We are inclined to put a smiley face on situations where there is clearly something bad going on. It is clear that Lucas is having some serious problems, but his parents are more than happy to take him at his word when he says that things are just fine, even when they can sense at some deep level that that is not the case.

steven-222 AFRAID OF THE DARK is a very subtle, very off-beat film...as you might expect from the directorial hand of Mark Peploe, who writes screenplays for Bertolucci (THE LAST EMPEROR) and Antonioni (THE PASSENGER). James Fox and Fanny Ardant (as the father and mother) have never been better; David Thewlis and Robert Stephens are deliciously creepy.Viewers expecting anything like a traditional thriller or horror film may be thrown for a loop--in the very best way. Metaphors about blindness and vision are all through the film, providing a kind of layered richness that was more common in the best films of the 1960s (such as Antonioni's BLOWUP). The story is not quite what it appears to be, and the way the film pulls a twist to reveal the "reality" is a stunner!

Eric-1226 **Spoiler Alert: Possible explanatory SPOILERS ahead, necessary for my review**"Afraid of the Dark" is a movie about a young British boy, Lucas, who suffers from an eye condition which, if not corrected with a surgical operation, will certainly cause him to go blind. The movie shows how he mentally fades in and out of his "real" world, often times creating a hellish imaginary world that only a young, impressionable, and, namely, SCARED little boy could create.I saw it once, didn't understand it, and didn't much care for it, as it seemed a confusing, unentertaining hodge-podge of an art-house film – although I did enjoy the dark, moody, atmospheric feel to it. I also liked the London row-house setting. It is a quiet movie, a virtually humorless movie, with a rather somber, at times slightly eerie soundtrack.Interestingly, I had recorded it on tape, and, not wishing to re-record something over it without giving it at least another chance, I decided to watch it again… surprisingly, it was more compelling viewing the second time through, and I'm glad I saved my tape. It helps to understand that the movie combines healthy doses of artistic license as well as portrayal of events that are purely a child's fantasy, which, upon first viewing can be so confusing and off-putting that I can see why the average viewer might not like this movie. You will spend a lot of time wondering what's real, and what's not.But give it a chance. You may have to watch it twice, like I did, but you will be rewarded. Just remember that many of the "twisted" scenes in the movie are not real: they are scenes that merely reflect a nightmare world as concocted by the hyper-imaginative mind of the scared young boy, Lucas, who is terrified of his upcoming eye operation/possible blindness. So I must give the film great credit for not only being imaginative, but also very sobering, as it is a thought-provoking glimpse into the frightened mind of a child faced with possible blindness.

jamsam-2 i am still not sure what the hell this movie is about. i guess the boy was afraid of becoming blind and began imagining all sorts of strange things. this does not explain why he wanted to kill his new baby brother , however , or the unrelenting boredom found within this film. while watching this movie you will wish you were blind so you did not have to see this experiment in futility. skip this steaming pile and opt for anything else at the video store ..... anything else.