A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is such a great movie!! It seems in every aspect a "small" project: just 2 actors (three, if you count the girl next door in); a very simple setting of the interior of one (not even a very special or scary) house; all of the action taking place within a few hours on one and the same evening; a script that's rather straightforward, no complicated twists or multiple layers; and only some slight use of CGI. But they really used all this modest material to the greatest advantage and effect, to create a very entertaining and hair-raisingly scary modern horror-classic. It's about two brothers. Young Ryan (about 12) is scared of the dark, maybe due to some prior traumatic experience that we never much get in to. It's more important that he is convinced that there are real monsters lurking in the dark, threatening him every night. His adolescent brother Dale tries to rationalize the fears of his brother, especially since this night their parents go out and leave them all alone. But soon he must admit that there's maybe some terrible truth and reality in the convictions of his little brother.Sure, there are lots of cliché's: the whole movie through it's storming outside and there's continuous thunder and lightning; there's a scary attic and an even more scary cellar; and naturally at one point the fuses give way and the lights fall out. But hey, what self-respecting horror-flick does NOT use some of these all-time ingredients, and as ever they provide a solid sense of tension. The original side of this movie lies in the relationship between the brothers. Contrary to so many other (horror-)movies, here's two brothers that actually love each other! No sign of rivalry or jealousy, or of Dale being wearied with his little brother's apparently silly fears. He just tries to understand them, he takes his brother actually very serious and does his utmost to help him. Kevin Zegers and Jesse James both do a great job here. I recently saw Zegers in Transamerica and was equally impressed then, but here in Fear of the Dark he has a leading role and he very convincingly carries this whole project on his shoulders. The monsters that eventually DO exist and come out in the open (or do they??) may be a little weird, I mean you would expect a Toothfairy or a Darkness Falls-like screaming witch, but here they turn out to be big guys in long black trench-coats, like the evil versions of hit men in a Sergio Leone western. Although different, this doesn't make them any less scary, they are really some mean and ugly menacing buggers. In short: a great movie that kept me at the edge of my chair for the full one and a half hour. I rank it a heartfelt 10!

This story looks more like an account of a collective paranoia case generated by a mentally insane kid, and not a ghost story.Twelve years old Ryan is pathologically afraid of the dark, suffering from some bizarre nyctophobia caused by being trapped in a dark basement years ago. His insanity makes you wanna punch him to sanity once for all.Instead he has an older brother Dale who doesn't believe him in the first place, but starts to get scared by him. Dale has a girlfriend who's in some kind of platonic relationship with him (very cute subplot).So one night the two brothers are left alone by their parents who go to a party. During the night Ryan drives Dale crazy with his fear that the lights in the house might go off and the "living darkness" could get him. Then both of them start to see creepy faces and hear scary noises. That's the point in the movie when you get nervous because you expect an explanation for what's happening, but you don't get any clue besides the clinical one.The whole madness comes to an end in the morning when the sunlight scares the "ghosts" away. That would never happen to real ghosts, but we are talking about made up ghosts produced by a damaged mind.5 out of 10 because I watched it with the speakers turned loud on and some scenes were scary because of the noise.

This has to be a contender for one of the worst films of all time. First of all the film doesn't make sense. My guess is the screenwriter is a monkey or maybe another member of the animal kingdom. There are more holes in the story than a pound of baby swiss. I mean, come on, where do these monsters come from and who are they? In the film they never explain. The only thing in the film worse then the screenplay is the acting. Well, the little boy, Jesse James, is actually not bad, but the guy, Kevin Zeggers, who plays his older brother sucks. The actress who plays his girlfriend gives an even more terrible performance. One could speculate that the only thing more painful than this film is castration with a rusty fishing knife, but even that is debatable. Did I mention the ending? The ending is one of the most clichéd pieces of crap I've ever experienced in my life. What happened to creativity? Most independent films I've seen don't have the money for big visual effects, so they make up for it with original writing and plot twists. Nope, 'Fear of the Dark' is about as original as a plagiarized term paper. 'Fear of the Dark' is the kind of movie that when completed, would make you feel relieved to get back to studying for an Organic Chemistry final. There's only one positive aspect about this film, once I think long and hard about it -- at least it's better then Miss Congeniality 2. Grade: F

Complete waste of time...comes off like a "Made for the Disney Channel" kind of horror film...some good special effects, but nothing that would scare anyone over the age of 5. I don't remember this film being released to theaters, so I am thinking it must have gone straight to video. I tried really hard, but I could not get through it all. It starts out with a sense of possibility, I even began to compare the premise with "The Ring", but it loses steam very quickly and feels like a prime-time sitcom trying to be scary. Nice sets and good looking characters, but no real depth. It might be suitable for a pre-teen Halloween party - at least it is a PG-13, so that might get their attention. Linda Purl looks great, though.