Darkness, Boogeyman

Anna Paquin shares the scares in the somewhat perplexing teen-scarer Darkness.

BOOGEYMAN

Herald rating: * * *

CAST: Lucy Lawless, Barry Watson, Tory Mussett DIRECTOR: Stephen T. Kay RUNNING TIME: 86 minutes RATING: M (horror scenes) SCREENING: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley

DARKNESS

Herald rating: * *

CAST: Anna Paquin, Iain Glen, Lena Olin, Stephen Enquist DIRECTOR: Jaume Balaguero RUNNING TIME: 89 minutes RATING: R13 (horror scenes) SCREENING: Village, Hoyts and Berkeley 

School holidays are approaching and an influx of teen horror films will keep the kids entertained and scared senseless. Both these films have Kiwi connections. Boogeyman, a simple, effective horror flick aimed at an audience interested in cheap, easy thrills, is produced by Auckland actress Lucy Lawless' husband, Rob Tapert (Zena, Hercules).

Our hero Tim Jensen is a young magazine editor with a fear of cupboards. When Tim was 8 his father mysteriously disappeared. His mother (Lawless) presumed he had walked out on them. But Tim believes his father was eaten by the Boogeyman, who was hiding in his bedroom cupboard.

Fifteen years later, when Tim is on his way to his mother's funeral, he decides to spend the night in his childhood home. Left to face his fears once and for all, he is guided by a young girl who confirms his worst fears - the Boogeyman is real.

A large part of the film is then spent staring at cupboard doors as Tim struggles to save those around him from the not-so-scary computer-generated Boogeyman.

Boogeyman has the wonderful distraction of offering recognisable New Zealand actors and locations, and Lawless and Charles Mesure - although they appear only in cameo roles - leave you eager to see more of them on the big screen.

Although Boogeyman can be criticised for pulling all the old horror-film tricks out of the bag, it fulfils its purpose of mindless entertainment and delivers the scares.

But Darkness is just too smart for its own good. I'm not too sure what happened in the final 15 minutes. It felt as if the film had been re-cut too often, befuddling the story.

From Spanish director Jaume Balaguero, it's the story of an American family who move to a rundown house in the Spanish countryside, unaware that 40 years earlier it was the scene of a macabre scientific experiment.

New Zealand actress Anna Paquin stars as Regina, the only member of the family with insight into her father's erratic behaviour. Regina's mother, Maria (Olin), does a wonderfully creepy job of acting like nothing's happening, and it's not until Regina and her boyfriend start investigating the history of the house that they realise they have little time to save the family. Unlike Boogeyman, not a lot happens in the first part of this film. More attention is given to creating an eerie atmosphere. Although Darkness looks better, Boogeyman is a better scarer of teens, who are flocking to it. And never have I heard so many cellphones or people wandering around the theatre as I did when watching these flicks.