Young boy has traumatic experience with <fill in the blank> that he must face again as a young man, while being scared of <fill in the blank>. Sound familiar at all? It should, if you've seen Darkness Falls. In one it's the Tooth Fairy and the Dark, in the other it's the Boogeyman and Closets. Change out the actors, and you get two movies for the price of one. In case you haven't guessed, I did not like this movie

Barry Watson as the lead character, Tim (yeah, they don't even do enough development to give him a last name), is decent, nothing to sing about, but passable. Emily Deschanel plays Kate, his childhood friend, and does a fairly good job, we certainly could have used more of her. And in the 60 seconds that we actually get to see Lucy Lawless act (Tim's mother), she does a great job. I think, it was really too short to tell, but come on, it's Xena, she's gotta be good. The big disappointment for me was Tory Mussett, as Tim's girlfriend Jessica; every scene with her was either over- or under-acted. The cinematography is reminiscent of Sam Raimi's action shots, especially from Evil Dead, but if the story isn't entertaining, then it doesn't really matter how it looks, does it?

Starring: Barry Watson, Emily Deschanel, Skye McCole Bartusiak, Tory Mussett, Andrew Glover, Lucy Lawless

Director: Stephen T. Kay

Released: 2005

Time: 89m / 1 hour and 29 min.