This is a good play that someone tried to turn into a move and failed miserably. It is just an awful movie - the Audrey Hepburn movie that she didn't want anyone to see. It could have been very good, with the right director and producer, but it completely misses the mark. Alan Arkin is not a versatile actor and his attempt at it fails. (And his costume changes are rather silly.) Not one of the bad guys is believable and within fifteen minutes you know the ending and the rest is just people messing around. The only one with star quality is Hepburn. Everyone else comes off like they are in community theatre or on a struggling TV show. I'm certain that she couldn't wait to finish this film. I know I couldn't. I suffered all the way to the end.

I had great expectations from this movie, especially seeing the high rating and the actors' names. What I got instead proved to be an extremely naive "thriller/mystery" that left me with more questions than answers. For example, why wouldn't she just give them the damn doll?!! Or why send the little girl in the park to look for her husband so that he can come with the police instead of just sending her directly to the police station? Even the way the criminals tried to convince her to give up the doll is not at all convincing? What happened to good old physical methods that are so common in today's movies? And so on and so forth, I could just go on and on forever. Disappointed, that's what sums it.

It's pretty obvious Wait Until Dark was adapted from a play. The setting is basically one room, in a tiny apartment, and even filmed, little to nothing else happens outside this room. This actually benefits the film, it makes the action that much more claustrophobic and gives it a great sense of space and awareness of audience expectations based on their keen sense of where things are in relation to everyone else.The film builds to a pulse-pounding finale. Expertly shot and staged, with top-notch acting from both Audrey Hepburn (who in other parts of the film I thought may have been overacting a bit, or at least "stage" acting too much) and Alan Arkin (man is he good in this. Those glasses and his voice...).

Being from a younger generation, I'm surrounded by new-age horror and thriller films that focus more on crafty kills and jumpscares than the actual plot. And that's fine since our attention spans are shorter and we've become more impatient, but it's nice to have a film that takes its time leading you up and freaking you out until you get to those final twenty minutes. I first saw this film in high school, recommended by my graphics teacher who was older than dirt, in our Reels movie club. He was so excited about the film and even did all the effort of darkening the room so that we'll have "the full effect." I must say, the movie freaked me out so much and the little jumpscares dotted in the movie scared me more each time until the final one had me and my classmates screaming and gripping our seats. After the movie, we all talked about it and some of my classmates wondered how such an old movie could scare us more than the newer movies being released today. And it's all in the plot and build up. Many movies today lack a certain amount of build up or a decent plot to hook onto. Wait Until Dark will have you watching the entire time. The thing about the movie is, you go in thinking it's some simple plot about a blind woman who's going to get robbed, but it's more than that. The criminals aren't your average "Sticky Bandits" types who go in guns blazing, no, they're the type that love to toy and mess with their victims. Well, it's mostly just Roat (Alan Arkin) who's calling the shots, but his sidekicks are also part of the trickery (but they get their "fair share" towards the end). The movie is complex, very complex. It requires the viewer to pay attention to props being used, to the sounds heard, to the words spoken by the characters. It's not something you can just watch and follow along. If you don't pay attention, something will happen later that will have you giving the infamous "huh" look. Then towards the end you get to see brilliant lighting techniques, camera angles, and how the director literally blinds you so you're eyes are wondering around trying to catch a glimpse of what's going on, what's happening, what fell!! It's amazing.I recently watched this movie again (in the dark, alone in my house) , since I'm more older and mature, and I still screamed and jumped. Even when I knew what was going to happen! That's how you know this movie is timeless. Plus, it deserves a second watch so you can catch anything you missed, such as how I missed key plot points about the doll, but caught them the second time around. I recommend this to anybody, young and old, and I'm going to have my friends watch it in the dark like I did so they can experience it too. Very fun and very thrilling.