I watched the movie on Amazon Prime (Germany) on a Saturday afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is not the scariest horror movie - and, if you watch a lot of horror movies, you might even say it is not scary at all. You will have the usual scares: noices, shadows, objects moving by themselves, etc. BUT: The story behind these is different than usually! And it has a lot of great and well-known actors. If you are into TV shows, be sure not to miss the little scenes with Jennifer Morrison ("Once Upon a Time") and Ming-Na Wen ("Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."). There's also Paul Reiser very convincingly playing a very annoying character. Kevin Bacon is a great lead and David Mazouz as Michael Taylor might be the creepiest part of the whole movie. Watch it! -- But don't necessarily compare it to movies like "The Conjuring" and its franchise or "Insidious". It's not a James Wan movie.

In recent years, supernatural thrillers have tried to look for new source material beyond the tired old "haunted house inhabited by ghosts" storyline that we're used to. From voodoo spirits in the Louisiana bayous in 'The Skeleton Key' to a haunted doll in the 'Annabelle' series. In Blumhouse Productions' 2016 film 'The Darkness,' we see what happens when ancient spirits worshiped by the Anasazi Native Americans are awakened and terrorize a run-of-the-mill family from LA.Basically, what happens is the Taylor family is vacationing in the Grand Canyon when young son Michael (David Mazouz), who is Autistic, stumbles upon ancient stones that were used by the natives who inhabited the land to trap evil spirits who terrorized them. Of course, Michael takes these stones back home with him, unbeknownst to the rest of his family, and weird things begin to happen. While the premise of film is more creative than many, as is the case with a number of films in this genre, 'Darkness' falters when it comes to execution.On the acting front, this really is "The Kevin Bacon Show," as he is the lead name attached to this project. While he does a respectable job playing Taylor patriarch Peter, who is a conflicted character with a heavy past, it is not enough to bring things to life. Radha Mitchell does a solid job in the supporting role of Bronny Taylor, a recovering alcoholic who does her best to keep her family from falling apart once things begin to unravel. But this film isn't about the performances, it's about whether the entire package can make the audience feel unsettled and scared without leaving a feeling of boredom or like it was time wasted. In this sense, 'Darkness' falls short.One of the most annoying things about 'Darkness' is how uneven it is. There really is no traditional story arc or build to a climax that is resolved - the entire time, it feels like you're driving and hitting all the red lights - we see developments in the plot, but then we change directions and it's like what we saw was just a distraction. Of course, the developments are supposed to be pieces of the puzzle that should in theory be solved by the end of the film, but nothing feels this all that deliberate. It instead comes across as a a messy compilation of creepy happenings and a lot of family drama.'The Darkness' showed signs of being a promising low-budget supernatural thriller but unfortunately never gets off the ground, which explains why it was shelved and ultimately dumped into theaters when it was.

The darkness..where do i begin. family,grand canyon,evil spirit comes home,boring..there ya go,quicker way to say plot. This film is awful,i absolutely hated it,the plot was one of the most worst ever. This is like just thinking up the worst plot ever like a haunted shoe or a bottle of perfume from many centuries sent back to kill. The acting is also bad,its like a man just picked a bunch of random people to star in this..awful. The darkness is a terrible,no scary,disastrous horror film. Hate It!

Despite the decent cast, this film is a snoozefest. The conflicts between characters outside of the main story line are supposed to add depth and build connections with the audience however in The Darkness those conflicts feel forced and are quite frankly rather unimaginative.Riddled with clichés at every turn, The Darkness offers nothing remotely original or thought provoking and the story line was so unbelievably convenient, I rolled my eyes into the back of my head more often than their cliché teen daughter.Often I'll recommend movies to friends even if I don't really enjoy it by saying something like, "If you have a an hour or so to kill, it may be worth a watch", but I cannot say that here, folks.Save your time or just re-watch The Poltergeist, that's what this film was trying to be anyway... only it failed miserably.