Summary
This rating may be a little on the high side, but I'm a sucker for movies about childhood fears. I have yet to see one which truly does them justice, which is perhaps a good thing. It's certainly safer that way. This one gives it the old college try, though.
Speaking of college, I'm also a sucker for movies that turn out to feature people that I graduated from college with. I just discovered this, because this is the first time I've ever gone to a movie to be confronted with a familiar face that I haven't seen for five years. Good for you, Dagmara!
Warning! Spoilers ahead!
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Barbara's Rant
When I was a child, I used to listen to cassette tapes while I was falling asleep. This was before audiobooks were so popular, so Barbara May and my parents would record books for me themselves. I'm not sure whether it was the familiar voice or just having a story to concentrate on that chased away the dark monsters that haunt children's bedrooms, but it worked so well that for a while my favoite part of the day was the time right after I went to bed and right before I fell asleep. It worked, that is until one dreadful night. I was listening to my tape, as usual, as I was drifitng contentedly off to sleep, no doubt with my favorite stuffed dog, Lucy (after the Peanuts character. Barbara May also used to read Peanuts cartoons aloud to me.) snuggled safely in my arms. I had one of those old tape players, the kind without a radio attached to them, next to my bed. I imagine it was pretty old even then, so a malfunction was probably to be expected. All I knew at the time though, lying in the heavy, shadowy darkness of my no longer familiar bedroom, was that I had been yanked out of near slumber by a noise that sounded disturbingly like breathing! The comforing voice of my mother reading to me was gone, without my glasses (a world away on my dresser) I couldn't identify any of the hulking, menacing, blurry shapes that loomed in the shadows, and I seemed to be surrounded by unidentified monstrosities, gulping, burbling, and hissing through their decaying teeth as they inhaled my juicy, tender scent. I realize that my life has been far from fraught with dangers, but it still seems at least a bit significant that, to this day, I recall this as the most frightening event of my life. For endless minutes I cowered, too afraid to move, too afraid to make a sound. The bravest thing I have ever done was to call for my dad. Unfortunately, the first two or three times I called him, it was barely a whisper. The first time I'm not even sure I did more than mouth the word, "Dad!" By that time, the paralysis of terror had lifted and I was able to scream for Dad, who naturally came running. (I once got a part in a play at summer camp becase I was the loudest screamer.) After that it was only moments before the tape player was turned off and I was safe.
I describe this incident, not because I believe it to be unique, or in fact paricularily interesting, except to me and my dad, to whom I explained my abject terror and initial abortive attempts to call for aid about fifteen years later. I describe it because I know that almost everyone reading this review has a similar story. Whatever shortcomings this movie may have, it has chosen for itself what I consider to be the most fertile theme for horror that our culture has to offer. There can be no better inspiration for a horror movie than a groundless terror which is none the less shared by millions and millions of unrelated individuals, each of whom is feeling absolutely alone. "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Monster in the Closet" notwithstanding, I'm surprised there aren't more movie out there about, well, monsters in closets. There should be.
On an unrelated note, I also think that this movie did an unusually good job of executing the almost univerally botched convention of the deliberately unresolved ending.
I still listen to audiobooks sometimes when I'm having trouble sleeping, although these days it's more likely to be a CD of Rob Inglis reading The Lord of the Rings than a cassette of Barbara May reading Alice in Wonderland. I save that one for really bad nights.
BARBARA JO
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