Jonathan Liebesman's Darkness Falls is set in the kind of bucolic New England town where Stephen King might set one of his horror tales, but even King probably wouldn't set his story in a town called Darkness Falls (which is a silly name for a town), and he would most likely try to maintain some kind of logical consistency and develop compelling characters, even if his story was built around a trite premise like a psychotically belligerent tooth fairy. This one can only function in darkness (but seems, inconsistently, to be able to materialize at will, in whatever dark place she likes). A similar hook was at work in the far more entertaining and imaginative science fiction flick, Pitch Black, a few years before Darkness fell. The other major plot device, the oddly prescient little boy (Lee Cormie) threatened by mysterious unseen forces, has been a horror movie staple since the success of The Sixth Sense. Chaney Kley is competent as Kyle, the one adult who knows what's going on. His love interest, Emma Caulfield, justifiably praised for her work as Anya on TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is given disappointingly little to do here beyond run, hide, and scream. Darkness Falls has a few effectively tense moments (it would be difficult to avoid them, predicated as the film is on a little boy in constant danger), but it too often settles for played-out easy jolts like the sudden appearance of a (friendly) face at a dark window or a kitty cat leaping out of nowhere onto the roof of a car, accompanied by a musical shriek on the soundtrack, just to make sure the less cliché-weary members of the audience jump in their seats.
