AFRAID OF THE DARK is a very subtle, very off-beat film...as you might expect from the directorial hand of Mark Peploe, who writes screenplays for Bertolucci (THE LAST EMPEROR) and Antonioni (THE PASSENGER). James Fox and Fanny Ardant (as the father and mother) have never been better; David Thewlis and Robert Stephens are deliciously creepy.
Viewers expecting anything like a traditional thriller or horror film may be thrown for a loop--in the very best way. Metaphors about blindness and vision are all through the film, providing a kind of layered richness that was more common in the best films of the 1960s (such as Antonioni's BLOWUP). The story is not quite what it appears to be, and the way the film pulls a twist to reveal the "reality" is a stunner!
Viewers expecting anything like a traditional thriller or horror film may be thrown for a loop--in the very best way. Metaphors about blindness and vision are all through the film, providing a kind of layered richness that was more common in the best films of the 1960s (such as Antonioni's BLOWUP). The story is not quite what it appears to be, and the way the film pulls a twist to reveal the "reality" is a stunner!