Fresh and Exciting

Fantastic!

The first must-see film of the year.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

In A Dark Place would be classed as a psychological horror/thriller. It stars the underrated Leelee Sobieski or as I like to call her Helen Hunts mini-me.Telling the story of a girl hired as a nanny of two less than usual children at a wealthy estate and her dwindling mental health.Also starring long forgotten English actress Tara Fitzgerald from the likes of Brassed Off (1996) this is an utter mess of a film from opening credits to closing.Immensely boring, poorly written and incredibly crappily made In A Dark Place is an instantly forgettable film with practically nothing going for it at all.The Good: Leelee Sobieski The Bad: Weak writing Terrible plot Bad finale Awful child actors Things I Learnt From This Movie: It may be roles like this that drove Sobieski to near retirement

I have absolutely no idea about the original novel based on which the movie has been produced. But I can assure you that this movie independent of the work on which it has been based is a pathetically directed and scripted one. The topic under consideration is a complicated one and requires the primary cast and crew to be matured and precise about psychological responses of people under varied circumstances. The movie is a horror movie and yet there are psychological elements involved in it. The biggest failure of the movie is that it fails to do a good job in both the elements.When I am seeing a horror movie, I am ready to fore go some elements that make good cinema provided that I do really enjoy the goosebumps the movie has to throw at me. Do I really get scared when I see this movie? The answer is a plain and a simple "no". Because the visual effects are simply too lame. One does not really need a great animation studio to get the effects right. It takes sheer brilliance on part of the director to get things done right. A simple evidence of this is that we have really scary movies when there was nothing called computer animation! And that brilliance is completely lacking on part of the crew of the movie and we do not get goosebumps at all except maybe on one or two occasions.The movie is to end without any proper conclusion. It is one of those kind of movies which tell you two parallel possibilities and then leave you to decide for yourself what you want to think about the conclusion of the movie. Such movies are not bad provided that both the parallels are strongly motivating. This movie does not really do a good job in this department and at the end all we are left with is an ending that just does not excite you, enthrall you and to make matters worse, it leaves you completely dejected and heartbroken for having wasted your time on it.The central character of the movie is a disturbed character. She has been sexually assaulted back in childhood and one of the explorations of the movie is how such a person can pass on the pain to others. But the overall lack of skill on the part of the actress, the script and the failure of the director to hold it all together destroy this element of the movie and we find nothing convincing at the end of the movie. A movie can always end with a twist but it should be so strong that people are left with a feeling of "Wow" at the end of it. Nothing like that happens in this movie. It is disappointing right from the very beginning.

Assumedly an adaptation from the XIX century novella "The Turn of the Screw", written by Henry James, this film IN A DARK PLACE is a modern view of that story. I must confess I hadn't heard about this novel before watch this film but as far as I could read on many texts on the Internet the movie really seems to follow the main plot lines of the original novella, with just some contextual and modern adjustments. However there's a subplot about child abuse in the film that I suppose to not exist in the Henry James' story. As far I as learned the main topic of the Gothic novel are the ghosts, not being clear, though, if they really exist or if they just dwell in the governess mind. About the original novel it seems to still the doubt (and the discussion!) if it's a straight ghost story or a murder story with a lunatic, and mentally deranged, governess. This ambiguity is a bit lost in the movie because the director seems to choose one side, when he increases this subplot about the abuses. I think he clearly induces the viewer to think the governess is insane, and even provides her an alibi: her own anguish caused by the abuses she suffered. So, in this movie, the ghosts really seem to exist only in her mind... I read somewhere that even the title of the movie is an allusion to that, as if "the dark place" was after all her mind! About the movie itself and its production I think it has good and bad features: Good: - The music score; the dream and/or hallucination scenes; the seductive and mysterious atmosphere, the setting, the acting from Tara Fitzgerald and from both kids; the ending. Bad: - The clichéd and old-fashioned whispering voices (at parts they are even ridiculous)!; the ghosts' make up (it seems to be taken from a B-series zombies movie)!; the acting from Leelee Sobieski (it's very inconstant, if she does good scenes, with a nice acting, in others she's terrible. But I must say she's grown as a woman!:); some suspense scenes, which could have been done better.

"In A Dark Place" is a somewhat slow and boring horror drama with a few good moments.**SPOILERS**Fired from a teaching job, Anna Veigh, (Leelee Sobieski) is offered a babysitting gig and eventually takes the position. Brought by assistant Mrs. Grose, (Tara Fitzgerald) to the house, she meets her charges Miles, (Christian Olson) and Flora, (Gabrielle Adam) and is soon tending to their problems as a full-time nanny. When she starts to suspect that something is amiss with them, she decides to learn about the history of the position, and realizes that there's a violent history involving the ghosts of previous residents of the house haunting the grounds and targeting the children. Taking matters into her own hands, she tries to prevent the same thing which happened to them from repeating itself with the children.The Good News: This one didn't have a whole lot to really get excited about. One of the most memorable aspects of the film is it's lesbian relationship, even though there isn't much of that going on. The one sequence where one of them writes in agony in a flowery shirt is nice, and the one sequence where they give in to the temptation and it goes for a mild sex scene is the real highlight, offering up a lot of good points to really serve it well. Some of the haunting scenes are actually good, mainly the ones coming at the end. The fact that they all occur in the frosty winter-land is a little chilling, giving it a nice atmosphere due to the stripped, dead trees reaching out to their victims. It's quite impressive and eerie altogether. The other plus is that they're used in conjunction with the ghostly hauntings, all of in the distance and making them seem even creepier. The last good point is the really nice chase at the end. The stalking in the house is pure gold, lasting much longer than normal and going out to really get a lot going for it. Then it moves out into the wintery forest, which is always great and it's combined into a spectacular conclusion. These here are all that really work for the film.The Bad News: This was an all-together huge missed opportunity for something decent. One of the biggest problems is that the supernatural hauntings are nowhere near center-stage in this, making the drama the real focus of the action. There's very little, if anything at all, in the beginning which is all that great, or even entertaining, centering around the efforts to understand the children. That's not a wholly entertaining avenue to explore in this, especially once it starts dominating and nothing at all really happens, and when they do happen, it's usually a quick-cut sequence that isn't followed up on, rendering it of no importance other than a cheap-jump gag or is written off as hallucinations, which is really a shame since the hide-and-seek game played is rather cheapened of a great, genuine thrill by it's lame revelation. Other scenes are also hurt by this, and it really hurts the film altogether. Another missed opportunity comes from the weakened lesbian angle. Not enough nudity is really shown outside of one sequence, and with a coupler bathing scenes, a make-out fondling and a couple dressing scenes all offering up nothing, all coming off as teasing rather than anything else and coming up as plain irritating. The main missed opportunity with the ghostly haunting also manages to slow the film's momentum down, really making the beginning quite boring, especially with the fact that it's more or less an unnamed remake of a classic in the genre, only with a few minor changes. It's quite easy to pick up on the references, to the manner of job acquisition to the antics between the two to the school problems and much, much more, really taking a large piece with it. The last flaw is the film's rather misused house. This could've been a really creepy, old-style house with modern twists that really could've been a creepy and unsettling place, but is shot all the wrong way and really does the film a huge disservice. These here are the film's flaws.The Final Verdict: With a couple of good parts and some really big flaws, this one is a really big disappointment when it could've been worthwhile. Really only give this a chance if you're a huge fan of the style or those who like the creative side, while those who want some action in their films should heed caution.Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence, Nudity and a mild sex scene